


The Philosophy of Winter

by sarahbacou



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Corpses, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Gen, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Jaskier | Dandelion, It's got everything, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Role Reversal, Sickfic, bloody noses, have you ever wanted to know how badly it would go if jaskier was a witcher for a day?, new york's hottest club is jaskier's pov, stories about oil, well have i got the fic for you, what is the 'philosophy of winter'? idk bitch death of the author go figure it out for yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26113069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahbacou/pseuds/sarahbacou
Summary: Jaskier had never wanted to claw his way into somebody’s chest, break their ribs one by one like they were mere roasted bird bones, and squeeze their beating heart until it burst, blood squelching between his fingers, until he had seen someone spit on Geralt’s face. There was no doubt in Jaskier’s mind that he would stand in front of a broadsword for him, drink poison for him, or anything else of the sort.“I’ll make you better, Geralt,” He promised, “I’ll make you better, and then we’ll get Roach and ride far away from here.”in which there is a role reversal, several minty squirrels, and a yearning jaskier.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 18
Kudos: 209





	The Philosophy of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> the only thing i really wanna plug is the extended editions of lord of the rings, literally any book by toni morrison, and my love for nell crane (nell if ur free on thursday call me so we can hang out on thursday when you're free)

I

Jaskier had never liked anything between the time when the last green leaves of summer shuddered into the crisp, shriveled fronds of autumn and the first blooming buds of toothy spring pushed forth from the bleeding gums of winter. The crunching sounds of dead flora beneath his feet were never something he had ever gotten used to and often threw him off whatever rhythm he had going for his ballads. Gone were the pungent perfume smells of roses and lilies; scents of rotting foliage and dampness now prevailed in the air, called themselves kings among men. The towns Jaskier liked to inhabit during these trying months were well equipped to deal with all of these problems. Orphans or punished teenagers swept the cobblestone streets free of dead leaves. Windows of shops and inns were blown open by womanly hands, a loaf of cinnamon bread or mincemeat pie was placed on a sill or two.

All of these places, however, were more southerly. Jaskier was, at the present, more northerly, with his tanned face pressed towards cold temperatures and even colder winds. It had been so long since he’d had any sort of feeling in his toes or the tip of his nose. Word had gotten to him that a certain lady - name not necessary, for Jaskier cared not of trivial formalities such as that - wished for him to sing at her brother’s coronation. The pay, he had been assured, would be both bountiful and pleasurable, and to start his journey posthaste. Jaskier couldn’t refuse. After all, he hadn’t seen Geralt in weeks and the coin did not flow as freely without the famous White Wolf by his side. The last they had seen of each other was a smallish town at the southwestern border of the Continent, Geralt frowning and Jaskier smiling. 

Their places would be switched now, with Jaskier frowning so deep it started to hurt the corners of his mouth and Geralt… Well, Geralt probably wasn’t smiling. He rarely ever did. But his lips probably were somewhat curled at the ends as he no doubt enjoyed the quiet and solitude. 

Jaskier’s pockets felt remarkably empty. He had spent the last bit of coin on a proper pair of fur-lined gloves and a heavy cloak dyed rich, deep purple that was meant to make him feel more like a regent and less like a lowly bard. The fact that it didn’t proved that that was truly its only design flaw. Otherwise, it kept him warm enough during the cold nights and the morose mornings. He planned on stopping at the next town for a night and sing enough songs to earn a bed and a meal, but that was a ways off still. 

He kept his eyes to the ground lest the unforgiving wind batter his lashes shut like iron gates. Beneath him was white. Crunchy, smooth, virgin whiteness that Jaskier defiled with his footfalls. It had been like this for miles and he expected it to remain that way for a great many more. Snow packed itself into his threadbare socks every time he pressed down. A puff of white issued from his mouth as he exhaled, tucking his numb chin into the folds of the fur-lined cloak in an effort to restore feeling. 

“Why couldn’t they live in warm Nilfgaard?” Jaskier complained as he trudged up a particularly steep hill but then bit his lip. “On second thought, this is much better. So much better. The ladies in Nilfgaard are some of the fairest I’ve seen, but their armies!” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t dare cross into their lands without - Geralt!” 

Indeed, there lay the Witcher, black-armored body negatively highlighted against the blank backdrop. Jaskier scrambled over and knelt before the body, hands slightly fluttering above hands, shoulders, a neck. Geralt’s head was turned away from him towards the north, white hair obscuring most of his face. His tall, bulky frame was slightly smaller, knees bent at the joint, hands, and forearms loosely pressed together near his chest. Frost lay gently upon the firm shoulder and breastplates and on the ends of his hair and eyelashes. Jaskier peeled back the stiff strands and gazed upon the powdered-blue lips and sucked in air through his teeth. The wind blew around the pair as Jaskier pulled Geralt onto his back, tapping his cold cheeks lightly.

“Geralt? Hey, can you hear me? Melitele, Geralt, wake up!” When there was no response Jaskier took to shaking his body by the shoulders none too gently. He looked around for anything to help. Geralt’s potion bag would be indispensably useful at this moment in time, but whether Geralt left it at his campsite (unlikely) or it had become covered in snow during his sleep (more probable) remained to be seen. Roach had also failed to make an appearance in the barren woods they found themselves in, which sent a pang of fear down Jaskier’s spine. He kept shaking Geralt’s body and tapping his face, calling out his name in more and more frightened and desperate tones. 

“It’s Jaskier. _Your_ Jaskier. Your _bard_ . Fuck, Geralt! Fuck!” Jaskier held a finger under Geralt’s nose and was immensely relieved to find hot breath seeping through the nostrils. “Wake up. _Please_ wake up. Shit, uh… Fuck. What do I…” He scanned the white woods once more, gasped, and held his breath as his eyes landed upon a rudimentary cave, held up by two warring rocks, each wanting to be more vertical than the other. They were ground level, and it seemed some animal or some man had dug a few feet below the dirt.

“Stay right here,” Jaskier ordered Geralt’s still, unmoving body and laughed giddily at himself, swiping a shaking hand through his hair. “Where the fuck would you go? You can’t even fucking hear me. Fuck!”

Jaskier trudged towards the cave in ankle-deep snow and then slid down into it. There was enough daylight left that it wasn’t completely pitch black inside, though the edges were smudged like a charcoal painting. Dead leaves and pine needles decorated the earthen floor, and the opening was at enough of an angle that the harsh winter wind could not blow snow into the cave. It was not terribly big - Jaskier could stand in the middle, take five steps towards either direction and smack his nose on cold stone - but it was empty and quiet and warm, which was all that Jaskier required of it anyway. 

Geralt’s unconscious and unhelpful state had not changed in the few minutes Jaskier took to scout out their temporary dwelling. His lips remained blue like berries found in summertime, his fingers almost as purple as Jaskier’s cloak. Once more he tried shaking Geralt awake but in the end had to drag him inside the cave, being careful to ensure he’d not sustained further injuries.

There was once a boy Jaskier knew of when he was studying at university who, at one point in time, was as cold and discolored as Geralt was now. He’d jumped into a lake fully clothed on a stupid dare in the middle of January. By the time some faculty members fished him out, he was nearly dead, with ice covering his black eyebrows and hairline like some fearsome snow monster. The healer of their university had ordered for the boy to be stripped of all his wet clothing and sat by a fire, body piled high with thick, exotic furs until he woke up, shivering and sputtering, but alive. 

It seemed logical to follow those same steps and Jaskier was thankful that he did not have to lug Geralt from the bottom of a muddy, frozen lake. He stripped Geralt of his armor and placed it a few feet away to dry among the dirt and the leaves. Luckily it seemed that his simple tunic and pants were dry enough, save for a few spots here and there, although when Jaskier had peeled off the bottom half of Geralt’s armor he’d found a nasty cut on his thigh. It wasn’t large - only about an inch or two wide - but it was the depth that frightened him. Dark blood oozed from the wound at a sluggish pace, coating the tips of his fingers with warm wetness that glistened in the afternoon sun as he pressed down. One hand kept the heavy, even pressure while the other tore Geralt’s pants around the ankle until he had a sizable bandage he could wrap around the injury. 

Finally, Jaskier unclasped the cloak from around his shoulders and placed it atop of Geralt. They were near enough in height that it almost fully covered him. Just the tips of his boots stuck out. As an extra precaution, he packed leaves around Geralt until he was a castle guarded by a moat. How well leaves worked as far as insulation remained to be seen, but if it could help seal his body heat within the cloak Jaskier would call it a success. He leaned against the cold cave wall and panted, arm muscles aching with pulling a full-grown witcher. 

“You really don’t like to make my life easy, Geralt,” Jaskier remarked as he closed his eyes and reached behind his back to grab his lute, setting it beside him.

There wasn’t a response to his questions. Jaskier didn’t expect there to be. The boy at university had taken a good half hour to revive himself and that was after only two minutes in icy waters. Geralt could have been lying there for the better part of the day before Jaskier stumbled across him, longer, even, so he really had no idea when Geralt would wake up.

After he’d taken a couple of minutes to regain the air in his lungs Jaskier pushed himself up and out of the cave. Without his cloak to keep him warm Jaskier started to shiver within the first few seconds of being exposed to the frigid temperatures, but he pressed on regardless. What Geralt needed was a fire and it was up to Jaskier to provide it no matter how miserable he felt. With that in mind, he set out to grab the low hanging branches on nearby trees, tossing them near their camp when his arms got too full. 

At one point Jaskier thought he tripped over a log. His foot was caught in something and unbalanced his entire person, sending him careening down a gradual hill. For a moment he laid on his back, staring up at the eternal timelessness of evergreen trees. They were spotted here and there with old snow and reached out to the nearest brother or sister, branches turned to hands of longing. In a forest, especially with trees like these, Jaskier never saw just _one_. Evergreens were not solitary trees. They had to have family that stemmed back to the outskirts of the woods. Some were so clingy to an aunt or a cousin that they quite literally blocked out the sun with their closeness. Above the trees were clouds, waving shade down upon a slightly stunned Jaskier. He wasn’t hurt, nor had the breath been taken out of him. He was surprised and nothing more. 

When he sat up he noticed a brown strap wrapped thrice around his left boot. Connected to the devilish strap was Geralt’s bag, in which he kept potions, flint, and sometimes if they’d been particularly lucky, dried meat and fruit for their long days of travels. 

“Oh, Melitele,” Jaskier smiled up at the sky, warm with good fortune. “You truly _do_ care about me.” 

But when he rooted through the bag he only found a few errant shards of broken glass, five dried mint leaves, two small pieces of flint, and a cup that probably looked comically small in Geralt’s hand. Whatever else had been in there had been lost long ago. 

“Or you’re just a bitch. That’s cool, too.” 

Jaskier took the bag anyway. He pocketed the mint, flint, cup, and one shard of glass that could be used as a crude sort of knife before stuffing the carcass of canvas with dry leaves he found at the base of a tree. If anything it would make a good pillow for Geralt.

It was considerably darker when Jaskier again reached the cave. Although it was not yet dark he was elated to be near Geralt, who exuded safety and security even while unconscious. He kicked his pile of sticks close by Geralt’s form before sliding in himself. The fire, in the end, that Jaskier made was small, but it burned brightly and heated the small stone cavity considerably. It wasn’t like he had meat to cook or soup to boil. 

Geralt was still breathing when Jaskier settled near him to put the bag beneath his head. His lips had changed back into a chapped flesh color instead of drowner blue, and his skin no longer felt like burning ice. All those things Jaskier considered to be a win in his book. Overall he felt pleased with himself and smiled like a fat cat who caught a dead mouse. 

“You’re very lucky to have me, Geralt, what with Melitele deciding to be a major bitch and all.” 

“Fuck. You again?” Came the slurred and unexpected reply. Jaskier nearly jumped out of his skin, opting for a low hiss to issue his surprise instead of the high pitched scream he wanted to initially produce.

“Yes, me again! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” 

Geralt turned away from Jaskier onto his side, leaves crunching under his bulk. Whatever his response was had been garbled to the point that Jaskier understood none of it, and then his breathing evened out, and then Geralt was asleep again, with only the crackling of the little fire to keep Jaskier company.

II

The sun had barely peeked over the tree-dotted horizon when Jaskier felt Geralt groan like a bear and move beside him, disturbing the nest of leaves he had found himself sleeping on. He found that the arm he had used as a makeshift pillow had become numb and rather useless as his neck was stiff and sore. Moving his head towards Geralt’s restless form proved painful so he reached out a hand to push him back down.

“Let me go, Jaskier.” Geralt demanded, voice full of phlegm and gravel. 

“You’re injured,” Jaskier’s voice was quiet in the dark morning, afraid to disturb the promise of a new day. The tip of his nose was freezing. He focused on that rather than how hot Geralt’s chest was even through the heavy cloak. “Found you unconscious in the forest yesterday. Stay. Sleep.” 

Whatever sound issued from Geralt’s mouth, whether it be a growl or a low sort of roar, it sounded like a cornered animal. Jaskier wouldn’t be surprised if razor-sharp teeth of a bear’s snout started to chomp on his slightly calloused hands. “You’re going to be injured if you don’t let me get the fuck up.” 

Jaskier laughed weakly, a small grin washing onto his face like timid tides on a beach. “You don’t have the balls to hurt me and we both know it.” He pushed himself up to a sitting position with his free arm. “If you can honestly tell me you’re at your best _and_ if the cut on your leg has stopped bleeding I’ll let you go. I have places to be anyway. You’re just a rather unexpected detour.” 

Geralt’s yellow eyes were nearly reflective in the grey light. Like a yellow moon shining diligently through a hazy curtain of smoke. Jaskier watched as they wavered over his entire face, wet with uncertainty. “I’m fine.” 

“You’ve got faults, Geralt, but I didn’t think lying to your best friend was one of them.” 

“I’m not lying and you’re not my best friend.” 

“No,” Jaskier agreed easily, relinquishing his hard sought after title. “That’d be Roach, wouldn’t it? But some best friend she is. She isn’t even around to take care of you. But I am.” He stroked some errant wisps of hair from Geralt’s sweaty forehead, much like a hired prostitute would when Jaskier would lament all of his woes after sex. “Your Jaskier’s here to nurse you all better.” 

A terrifying scowl soured what little neutrality Geralt’s face had going for it. He smacked Jaskier’s hand off his head none too gently, leaving Jaskier to howl like a kicked dog. “Knock it off. Roach is fine; I left her at the town three miles to the north of us while I hunted.” 

“What were you hunting?” 

“Gravier.” 

“Oh,” The corners of Jaskier’s mouth pulled down in a respectful manner as he nodded. “Admirable. Too bad you got your ass handed to you.”

“Shut your mouth, Bard.” 

“Now I _know_ you’re feeling poorly. That’s not even a proper threat!” 

Geralt growled again, trying to push himself off the floor of the cave, but Jaskier was strong, too, and held him down like weighted stones to paper. “So it nicked me. I killed it in the end! Doesn’t mean I’m a fucking invalid. Let me _go_ , Jaskier. I have to return the head!” 

“You’re burning with fever, Geralt. I doubt you could stand up properly.” Jaskier tucked the cloak tighter around Geralt’s torso, tucking it between his back and the makeshift bed of leaves. “I know you don’t like to do so, but you need to be taking a break. It’ll be fine. I’ll be here.” 

“That’s what I’m worried about.” 

Jaskier scoffed, holding a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Ye of little faith! I studied only the finest healing books and took only the most esteemed lectures on medicine during my time at University!” 

Geralt blinked blankly at him. “You took a geography class because you could get piss drunk in it, and you only read books on how to woo women, so forgive me if I don’t trust you to take care of me.” 

“Alright, fair enough. I’m a better womanizer than I am a healer, but you’re still stuck here until you’re no longer sick.”

With Geralt grumbling complaints and empty threats under his breath, Jaskier took this time to reevaluate the cut on his leg. Thankfully it had stopped bleeding and it didn’t appear to be infected once Jaskier picked away the dried blood around the wound. He pushed down on the skin surrounding it which caused Geralt no pain, leaving Jaskier satisfied enough to rebandage it once more.

Silence commandeered the two men like a strict sea captain, waves of rustling leaves the only reprieve from stillness. Jaskier could not quite bring himself to call it tranquil. Geralt was an oar of impatience that fought against a current of peacefulness. Though he did not speak Jaskier could tell he was about ten seconds away from clawing his face off whenever they accidentally made eye contact. 

Birds sang sweetly outside from their homes of needles and wood. Robins, if Jaskier could remember correctly. In the last town he had been at a young girl, no more than seven, had tugged on his silk sleeve after his performance and said in a toothy grin that he sounded just like the robins in the woods her father hunted in. She didn’t have a coin to press into his stinging hand - Jaskier didn’t expect her to, but the smile and the compliment were better than anything he had been given in the past month. Children were always so honest. If they didn’t like something they wouldn’t spare a person’s feelings.

Maybe that was why Geralt didn’t hold his tongue. Maybe he was still a child. 

“‘Ts cold…” Geralt croaked out, breaking Jaskier out of the fond memory. He held the back of his hand to Geralt’s forehead and let the smallest of scowls appear on his face.

“Your fever’s probably rising. It _is_ cold, I grant you. Middle of fucking winter. But I’m not shivering like you are.” 

Jaskier sighed, scratching his own forehead and looking around their small cave. He’d used most of his meager firewood last night trying to get Geralt’s core temperature up. There remained only two thin branches; the rest were ashes, ghosts of their former selves. Everything outside was wet with snow which meant Jaskier would be forced to travel to a nearby town for supplies. 

“I don’t have enough coin to get wood, Geralt.” 

“Mm…” He hummed in response, eyes drooping shut. “Th’ head…” 

“The Gravier head? I suppose I could trade it for money. How much did you settle for it?” 

“Hm… nine hundred?”

“Nine hundr… Melitele’s tits, Geralt!”

“Killed the mayor’s son and daughter in law… Big reward.” 

Jaskier nodded approvingly. “Yes, well, thank goodness it did. Last time you killed a Gravier you only managed one fifty.”

Geralt slowly turned onto his side, punching the bag of leaves beneath him. “Mayor’s a right bastard though. His reward may’ve been high but that didn’t mean he enjoyed me doing the job.” 

“But is anyone truly happy to employ a witcher?” 

“You seem to be alright with it.” 

“Ah, but I did not hire you. That’s the difference. That’s why Yennefer likes you. We don’t have an ulterior motive to keep you around other than you simply satisfy some sort of dark, sadistic need we both have to be bullied. And you make for a fascinating poetry subject, after all.” 

“Whatever. Just be careful when you sell the head.”

“I’m always careful.”

“You are hardly _ever_ careful, Jaskier.”

“No, but that’s why you’re around.”

Geralt shivered tremendously, finally letting his eyes close in the first golden ray of the morning. “I won’t be. Not this time.”

Jaskier smiled sadly, tucking a greasy, tangled lock of hair behind Geralt’s earlobe, letting his eyes waver upon the white face wrought with torpor. Geralt really did, at his most vulnerable points, look nothing more than a lonely child. “Stay here. Keep under the cloak and think warm thoughts. I’ll be back before you know it.”

III

The very least Geralt could have done before collapsing was detach the Gravier’s head from the rest of its bloated and dilapidated corpse. Jaskier’s knees were soaked to the bone as he sawed away at the skin, muscle, and bone of the neck with the small shard of glass he’d picked up yesterday. A frigid wind blew about him and he thanked Melitele that there was no snow falling from the sky. It was a pretty nice day in the forest, all things considered. Cold drops of water plopped on the back of his neck as the snow melted from the highest of the tree branches, sending Jaskier’s entire body into near violent shivers. But the sun shined brilliantly down below, dappling the white ground with a bright diamond sheen. 

Decapitating a Gravier, though, was not so nice. For one, both Geralt and Jaskier had left it out to freeze, which meant that the glass, although sharp, was about as effective as a wooden spoon. The entire corpse was stiff and impossibly thick. Muscles were more akin to cords of heavy rope. Try as Jaskier might, and he tried hard, he could move the Gravier onto its side, so he had to resort to straddling the thing, bending down like a woman over a man, and hacking away at the neck. 

Jaskier had failed to take a monster anatomy course at Oxenfurt. He was a bard, after all, his skillset depended on classes focusing on poetry and rhythm and not what monster had what appendages. So it came as a surprise to him to find small pus-filled sacs within the folds of the Gravier’s neck. It spilled over like a thin yellow snake, steaming with hotness in the bitterly chilled air, and Jaskier, startled, fell back between the legs of the body, work only half completed. 

“Fu _ck_ , that _stinks_ ,” He hissed between his teeth, sitting up once more. Jaskier grabbed a handful of snow with his gloved hands and ran it over the Gravier’s neck to get rid of the pus before hacking away once more. 

It took him twenty or so more minutes to complete his task. By the time he did the morning sun was now almost high center in the sky. Despite the cold winter Jaskier was sweating buckets and panted quite heavily. At one point he had to abandon his gloves so they wouldn’t get stained with half-frozen blood. A nice gelid puddle of crimson hue, rubies among diamonds, spilled across the otherwise barren landscape. Carefully Jaskier stood up, trying not to get blood on his shoes or the bottoms of his pants. Walking into an unknown village covered in bloodstains did not bode well. Jaskier would know. He’d seen it happen to Geralt a myriad of times. Then, once he had found his footing and put his gloves back on, he grabbed the large Gravier head. With a hefty tug it came free from the tendrils of ice that had once secured it to the ground, and so began Jaskier’s journey once more. 

Jaskier hoped that he hadn’t spent too much time with the decapitation. He needed to get back to Geralt before sundown, least of all because of his illness. There were also wild beasts and, though Jaskier was sure Geralt and his fellow witchers had eradicated most of them, an odd monster or two. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself from anything bigger than a large dog; his only weapons being a slightly smelly head and a now dull glass shard. Shuddering at the thought of perishing in such a lame way Jaskier hoisted the head over his shoulder and trudged through the snow ever faster, blinking away the sweat that dripped down his forehead. 

It wasn’t long, probably a mile and a half or so, before Jaskier came across one of the more curious sights in his lifetime. 

To be clear, Jaskier did not consider the Northern territories to be bestrewed with feral and savage people. If there were men and women willing to survive in some of the harshest elements the human race had ever known, more power to them. Jaskier certainly would not live in this unforgiving land even if the richest king paid him. The people of the North did what they had to to survive, whether that was eating cats and dogs or, as was in front of him, impaling a naked woman on a stake to ward off outsiders. 

Two signs pointed in opposite directions on either side of the frozen woman. MILHEAD, 4 MILES read one. GRANUN, 20 MILES boasted the other. The woman’s head flopped towards Granun, her left arm pointed towards Milhead. 

She looked so young to Jaskier, no more than fourteen years, and he suddenly found life to be extremely transitory. So much life to have been lived, so many people to have met, ended so abruptly like a bubble in the air, a bird in mid-flight. Her frozen hair stiffly waved in the slight breeze, pale with frost. Her eyes were near-colorless, her lips blue like a fat man’s finger. 

It occurred to Jaskier that Geralt, had he not found him when he did, would be just as cold as this dead girl was.

A necklace of thorns adorned her neck, rivers of blood ran down her collarbone, down and over her exposed breasts and too thin ribs, and collectively stopped just above her navel. In the middle of her chest, a sign had been nailed into her skin, bruises spanning from her collarbone to her shoulders.

MONSTERS WILL BE EXECUTED. 

“But she’s not a monster…” Jaskier dropped the head and walked over to the girl, lifting up her frozen upper lip. Her teeth, white and pristine, indicating that she could invest enough money and time into good hygiene, were human. None were pointed. Nothing else could have possibly indicated she was anything but human. With no iron to see if the skin would boil and fester into large welts, Jaskier was forced to conclude whoever had killed this girl had killed her with wrong intentions. 

Jaskier touched her shoulder thoughtfully, sorrowfully like a brother would his sister. Her family was not around, did not care or did not know what happened to this girl, and Jaskier hoped that this same kindness would be extended to him if a stranger found him dead in the exposed wilderness. 

Without a second glance her way Jaskier picked the head of the Gravier back up, feeling the coarse bits of hair writhe around his fingers like spiders as he gripped it, and marched once more towards his destination. He hoped Geralt’s job had been in Milhead. He really didn’t fancy walking twenty miles. 

A road appeared after a long while. It was nothing special, just packed dirt, but it was one of the nicest and most civilized things Jaskier had seen in two days. As soon as his toes touched upon it a new feeling of hope and wonderment filled his step, springing forth ever merrier towards Milhead. It must have been a strange sight, seeing a bard near skipping with a head swinging in his hand.

Trees were becoming more and more sparse as farmland took over the earth, though Milhead was still very much still a part of the forest. Every hut Jaskier saw was fashioned from felled evergreens, linked together by a sort of binding mud paste. Roots that had been disturbed from their eternal slumber served as playthings for young children to crawl over and on top of. Pine needles made a wonderful bed for newly planted seeds. This was how the world was shown to Jaskier, fresh and potent, nearly sublime. 

A young boy, ten or so, for he had no Adam's apple and was as short as a stump, ran out of the house Jaskier was about to pass and tripped over his feet in front of him. 

“Oh!” Said the boy, smiling up at Jaskier. “Sorry. Mum says I’m too inconsiderate. I need to look before I run. Are you going to tell her?” 

Jaskier grinned back at the boy, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. “Don’t worry, you didn’t hurt me. I won’t tell your mother.”

“Thanks! She’d probably flog me if you - what are you holding?” 

Jaskier looked at where the boy was pointing. He’d been holding the gravier head for such a long while that it had become almost nothingness to him, the weight of as much consequence as his own fingers. “Erm… Well… That’s a really great question-” 

“You’re the witcher, aren’t you?” And suddenly whatever warmth was swimming within the boy’s eyes now was eaten up by fear. Whiteness colored his face and Jaskier was seriously concerned the kid would fall over again.

“No, no,” Jaskier laughed, waving his free hand back and forth, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. “I’m running an errand for him. I’m just his friend, you see. My name’s Jaskier, maybe you’ve heard of m-”

“Mum! MUMMY!” The boy screamed, face now red with exertion as he scrambled back to his home, legs blurry in the white landscape. “THE WITCHER, MUM! HE’S OUTSIDE! HE’S GOT A HEAD AND HE’S GONNA MURDER ME, MUM!”

Jaskier pinched the bridge of his nose, walking briskly within the treeline once more, concealing himself well enough so the pitchfork-wielding mother couldn’t find him. “Geralt doesn’t murder children. Everyone knows that.” 

It didn’t take long for the mother to dismiss her son’s ear-piercing accusations as nothing more than a cry for attention, smacked him hard behind his ear, and pulled him inside by the collar of his shirt. Jaskier told himself to not feel sorry for the boy, took a deep breath, and continued a bit more cautiously into the more metropolitan side of Milhead. 

IV

Geralt, it turned out, had been right about the townsfolk being prejudiced against witchers. This was particularly irksome, partly because Jaskier was the one who had to deal with the strange looks and the odd spit landing on his face this time around, but mostly because his great ballad _still_ hadn’t reached the farthest, most cold points in the Continent. The inns were stiff and gruff in this part of the world; traveling bards who sang songs for coin did not do well in the northern regions. Jaskier did not know many bards who thrived here, where fists served as drums and drunken battle cries were melodies. The last one to really make an impact had died fifty years ago during an epic brawl which he had started. Jaskier thought that he’d be the next important bard of the North. 

Without Geralt there to receive all the nasty stares and backhanded words Jaskier felt frighteningly naked as he walked into town. The sun told him it was a little past noon. He still had plenty of time to obtain the money, buy wood and other supplies, and hurry back to the cave before Geralt would start to _really_ get impatient.

The snow was not much of a constant right now. Jaskier’s feet almost felt cold rather than frostbitten and numb. Log cabins were, for the most part, the basis for all architecture for Milhead, though there was a two-story building built of stone that stood menacingly behind everything else. It flew banners of purple and green from the walls. Jaskier assumed that was where he needed to go.

“We don’t take nicely to yer kind ‘round here,” a voice called from behind him. 

“Go back to yer monster fuckin’ den, yew monster fucker!” 

“I’ll fuck yew up iffin you look at my daughter.” 

“Do you _maybe notice_ ,” Jaskier cried out, throwing his hands up in the air, the gravier head nearly smacking him in the face. “That I’m not the same man from before?! That I have short brown hair instead of long white hair? Maybe it’s because _I’m not the bloody witcher!”_

The symphony of outraged roars, because how _dare_ Jaskier lie about who he really was, just further irritated him, turning his ears red with embarrassment and fury. He finally gave into the crowd and turned towards them just as he arrived at the stone castle. 

“I’m not the witcher. But I’m _very_ good friends with the one who just killed this gravier.” Jaskier shoved it in a man’s face, who screamed and batted it away with his large paw of a hand. “And you can all rest easy tonight knowing that I’ll personally make sure that neither he nor his brethren come back here again. He’s got a good heart, Geralt of Rivia, and he puts up with this shit more than I care to say. You people… You’re just ungrateful bastards, the lot of you. Do you think he likes being spat on? Degraded? He’s a _person_ . He was born a _person_ , just like you, and just like me. And he may accept he’ll never be welcomed by you, that he deserves whatever abuse comes his way, but he doesn’t. 

Oh, not having him around protecting you may not seem bad at first. After all, there was only just one gravier, right? But wait five, ten years. Wait until your children start disappearing in the night. Wait until your husbands never return from their hunting trip. Wait until your wives go mad from collecting berries in the wood and throw up their own insides. Do you think gravier’s are the worst things out there in your woods? I promise you that this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of all the nasty things out there. This was fucking child’s play to Geralt, but if any _one_ of you go up against more than a fucking squirrel out there you will die. And the White Wolf won’t be there to save you. Not anymore.” 

Silence had entered the crowd, sliding down men and women’s treacherously slippery throats alike. Jaskier let the rise and fall of his chest take over his own voice, scowling upon each ignorant person. Geralt wouldn’t have given any of them the time of day, would have let it roll off his back like water. But Jaskier couldn’t let that happen to him anymore. There had to be consequences. In a generation or two when taking a geography course, men would never learn about a town called Milhead. Old maps would have it scratched out of them. Only the very old or the very dead would know it had even existed at all. Jaskier thought it was what every single one of them rightfully deserved.

Slow clapping issued from behind Jaskier, breaking him from his righteous state. His arm dropped and he turned around. 

“What a rousing speech!”

V

It took Jaskier about five seconds of meeting with the mayor of Milhead to decide that he loathed him, eternally and completely, with every fiber of his being, with every beat of his heart. 

He smelled too richly of perfume, sleepy lavender and alcoholic rose. It made Jaskier hide his nose in his doublet whenever he got the chance. Anyone who smelled this heady was definitely hiding something, though what exactly Jaskier had yet to uncover. 

The mayor invited Jaskier graciously inside his home, voice like thin vinegar. The man seemed to be made of oil: his watery eyes held no color, his yellow hair pale and greased slick against the sides of his face. His pasty skin shined with dampness that, quite frankly, alarmed Jaskier. He avoided touching the mayor as much as he could, worried that the affliction might be passed onto him. 

“So the Witcher Geralt, he… decided not to join us?” The candlelight illuminated the folds of the man’s face as they walked down a long hallway. Jaskier did not look at the vast amount of paintings adorning the walls or the statues rising from the floor. He looked at the pinprick of darkness that lay ahead. 

“He’s currently indisposed. He sent me in his stead.” 

“That is really too bad! He was such a magnificent conversationalist, I was looking forward to speaking with him again.” 

Jaskier raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you met Geralt of Rivia, Mr…?” 

“Call me Torvin. We are business partners, we have no need for formalities. And yes! I am quite sure it was Geralt I met with. Why?” 

Jaskier waved the topic away with his free hand. The hair on the gravier head started to slip between his fingers. “Doesn’t matter. My name’s Jaskier.” 

“I’m well aware of who you are. Don’t think that your songs have not graced the cracks and crevices of my home. Of course, the same cannot be said for the poor townsfolk you yelled at. They’ve never heard your tunes.” They turned to the right as they reached the end of the seemingly endless hallway. Jaskier wondered how a place could be so dark when it was so bright outside. The room they had entered was a large dining hall, complete with a mahogany table and velvet chairs, multiple bowls of fruit, and four thrones on the back wall. “I was wondering if you could play one of your songs before you left today.” 

Jaskier set the head on the table, flexing his cramped hand, and made his way towards the thrones. Absentmindedly he added, “Unfortunately I have to get back to Geralt before sundown. I was planning on buying some wood on my way out of Milhead so we must conduct our business quickly, I’m afraid.” 

“Oh, that makes me sad, Jaskier.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Three of the thrones made sense. Kind of. Jaskier thought Torvin was enough of a joke masquerading in the sheets and scents of a Lord, decorating his house like he ran more than an inn and a few homes, but the thrones made him laughably so. Obviously Torvin would squeeze into one, with his late son and daughter-in-law sitting on either side of him. Geralt had said nothing about another member of the family. 

“About the payment for the gravier head… How do I put this delicately… I’m not paying you the full amount.” 

Jaskier whipped around, steadying himself on one of the throne’s arms. _“What_?”

“Surely Geralt was not stupid enough to think that I would give him nine hundred coins!” Torvin laughed, patting Jaskier on the head like he was a mere child. “No, no, I think seventy is more than fair, don’t you?” 

“You’ll give me the nine hundred coins Geralt is owed. He executed his job to your specifications.” 

“Mm, I’m afraid not. I told _him_ to return with the head, and as you’ve so graciously shouted to everyone in the village, you are not the witcher.” 

“I’m as good as!” Jaskier snapped back. 

Torvin unclasped and clasped his hands, a demeaning smile plastered on his too-small face. “Are you, though? I don’t hear any songs about the fearsome Jaskier of wherever ringing through my halls. Now, I’d be more willing to pay one hundred coins if you were to compose a song about my late son and his wife.” 

“Piss off,” Spat Jaskier. “I charge more than you can afford for an original composition. Give me the money and I’ll leave, and I promise to never bother you or the townspeople again.”

“The witcher, too?” 

“What? Yes, obviously! Obviously I’m taking Geralt with me!”

Torvin nodded approvingly, reaching into the pocket of his robe and handing Jaskier a sack full of coins. “You’ve won me over. But make no mistake, Jaskier. I may have hired Geralt to seek revenge because I am far too important to fight monsters myself, but I despise his kind. Mutants like him are the scum of the earth. They deserved to be buried alive in the nastiest of holes or burned until their disgusting flesh melts off their evil bones.”

Alarm bells should have gone off in Jaskier’s head. For a man so seemingly attached to his coin, to his lifestyle, to his love of fake elegance, giving in on the condition that Jaskier and Geralt would leave seemed too easy. Jaskier still had his guard up, of course, but had Geralt been there the hair on his neck would have stood straight up. 

Under his breath, Jaskier muttered, “I can say the same for some humans.” 

After snatching the bag from Torvin’s greasy hand Jaskier started to leave the dining hall. The fourth throne still intrigued him, making his lips itch with questions, but he needed to get back to Geralt, who probably had the answers he sought for anyway. 

“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with you, Jaskier! Hopefully, we’ll see each other before you leave town, yes?” Cried Torvin. Jaskier did not turn around this time. He would not let anyone in the vicinity of Milhead bait him anymore. 

The world was blinding when Jaskier stepped out of the castle. He clasped a hand over his watering eyes as he adjusted to the white sunlight, walking like a drunk man to what seemed like a vendor’s shop. Wooden logs wrapped in twine lay along the back wall; above them lay small daggers and traps for forest animals. Upon the logs lay quart-sized cauldrons. The woman who ran it had spots of mud on her shoulders and cheeks. Jaskier smiled at her softly and grabbed twenty coins from the bag. 

“Can I get two piles of wood, please? And a dagger, a pot, and a trap, if it’s not too much trouble.” 

“Why would we help you?”

Defeat dragged down Jaskier’s entire posture, becoming a hunchback with slumped shoulders. “Lady, please. I’m paying you to give me wood, not to argue.” 

“We don’t like witchers. Or friends of witchers.” 

Jaskier ran a gloved hand through his hair, puffing his cheeks out as he exhaled. Maybe Geralt’s method of ignoring abuse was the best way to handle these types of situations after all. “How much do you want?” 

The speckled woman looked at her wares and back to Jaskier, eyes like knives as she studied him. “Thirty-two.” 

“Melitele, fine,” Jaskier rummaged through the bag and set the remaining coins on the table between them. For what he was buying twenty-nine seemed awfully expensive, and it was. Ordinarily, if people weren’t assholes Jaskier could get all that he wanted for fifteen coins. The woman reached over and got the wood, dagger, pot, and traps, but did not hand them to him.

She looked at the coins, banging one on the table. “They’re fake.” 

Jaskier pinched the bridge of his nose. “They’re not _fake_. Mayor Torvin just gave me them.”

“Mm, I know fake coins. These are fake coins.”

“Fuck!” Jaskier screamed. He threw handful after handful of coins at the woman, watching them hit her face with satisfying clinks. The woman yelled and knelt down below the table, where Jaskier pelted her a few more times before grabbing what he paid for and sprinting into the trees.

It was about two in the afternoon now, and while Jaskier would probably make it to the cave before it got dark if he walked at a leisurely pace he never slowed down his running. The warmth of Torvin’s castle had fled from his body. Without his cloak Jaskier felt the numbing, killing cold travel sluggishly from his head to his feet like an egg yolk. If he didn’t hurry he could end up like Geralt had, except there were no friends around wandering the forest to help him. There were enemies, though, and that was another reason he never quit his speedy pace. No doubt the shop woman would lie to Torvin about what had transpired. No doubt Torvin himself was sending people out to hunt Jaskier. If he could get to Geralt before they caught up to him Jaskier knew he’d be safe. Even sick and compromised Geralt could take more man than Jaskier could handle in his physical prime. 

There were a couple of times he tripped over snow-covered logs or his own feet, but overall Jaskier kept running like his life depended on it. He passed the dead impaled girl again but did not stop to look at the uncanny resemblance between her and Torvin. He just kept going and did not stop until he slid into the cave, faint and shaking, but unharmed. 

The cave was relatively dark but still held enough light that Jaskier could clearly see what he was doing and what was around him. Immediately he took two logs and started a small fire using the flint from Geralt’s pack. Geralt seemed to be sleeping so Jaskier tried to be as quiet as possible, but after about five or so minutes he roughly coughed himself awake. 

“Jaskier,” The Geralt shaped mound croaked almost happily. “You’re home. And unharmed.” 

Jaskier nodded, closed his eyes, and patted what he hoped was Geralt’s shoulder, breathing through his nose in an effort to catch his breath. He vaguely felt Geralt move underneath his fingers. He didn’t have the strength to push him down again or chastise him. 

“For the most part,” Jaskier replied, thinking about how wounded his pride was, how dirty his scalp felt after being touched by Torvin, how angry he still felt over the prejudices of the townsfolk. He took off his wet shoes so they could dry and warmed his toes by the fire. “How was your day?”

“I caught some dinner.” 

Jaskier opened his eyes, frowning disappointingly like a mother. “Geralt…” 

“I didn’t leave the cave. Some squirrels came while I was sleeping so I just, er…” Geralt pulled two dead squirrels from the other side of him and placed them in Jaskier’s lap. There was no blood on their fur although the necks were bent at a stomach-turning angle.

“Lovely. I’ve got some mint. I could make a stew.”

“Mm,” Geralt hummed, leaning heavily against the cave wall. He looked more ill than he had this morning. Jaskier feared that he’d been too late in finding him or that he spent far too long in Milhead. Silently scolding himself for being slow, for not being the friend and help that Geralt clearly so desperately needed, he put a hand to Geralt’s head.

Geralt felt hotter than he had before. Jaskier swallowed the fear rising in his throat that tasted like bile as he lifted up an eyelid. Geralt’s usually vivid yellow irises were now rheumy and wan, contrasting the glaring violet bags beneath them. The whites of his eyes were smeared with lines of red. Clearly he had gotten little to no sleep. Most of his hair had been torn from the braids and ponytails, leaving a mane of wild white around his pale head. Nearly all of his skin had a blanched color to it.

Jaskier did not outwardly pity him. Geralt often did not know how to handle sympathy and kind words, so he grinned gently instead as he let the eyelid close again. Geralt coughed again, longer and more aggressive than when he woke himself up.

“How long have you had that cough?”

Geralt just shrugged his shoulders and turned his body towards Jaskier, who had started to skin the squirrels. “I’ve had worse. How was the mayor?” 

“Oh, Torvin? He called you a great conversationalist. Obviously he had a few screws loose.” 

“No, he’s right. You’re just impossibly dull company.” 

“I’m _great_ company, thank you very much. Everyone says so.” 

“Yennefer doesn’t.” 

The now-skinned squirrel slipped from Jaskier’s fingers. “She wouldn’t know a gripping conversation if it bit her in the arse. Did you know she finds my life story to be irritating?” 

Geralt wiped the meat free of dirt and needles and easy deboned it. “It _is_ irritating.”

“You’re irritating.” Jaskier placed a hand on Geralt’s nest of a head, swiping his thumb thoughtfully over his forehead, feeling the decades-old scars and wrinkles that resided there. Every single one told a story, and every single one was an enigma Jaskier would never solve. Geralt slapped his hand away and placed the meat in the palm of his hand. 

“Did you get the money?” 

Jaskier did not answer. Instead, he took the small cauldron and cup and went outside to fill both with snow to put on the blazing fire to boil. Silently he handed the half-empty bag to Geralt, suddenly angry at himself for throwing so much at the shop woman. Coin was Geralt’s livelihood. Well, it was everyone’s, but if you were well-liked in society and simultaneously down on your luck friends and family would take you in, feed you, clothe you, at least for a little while. Geralt had no one like that. His only two friends, if that’s what you could call them, were no better than poor, bumbling nomads. Jaskier might as well just slit Geralt’s throat at that moment for all the good he’d done to him.

Predictably Geralt grimaced as he counted the coin. “There’s less than three hundred here. What the fuck happened to the other six hundred?”

Jaskier held out his hands, kneeling down before him. “Now, Geralt, before you get angry-” 

“You better fucking till me, Jaskier, or I’ll tear your arms out of your sockets.” 

“When I went to get supplies, the, the woman said that the coins were, were, um… fake?” Jaskier winced, voice nearly an octave higher than normal. “And I got angry. And I sort of, um… th-threw coins at her? I don’t know how many. Melitele, Geralt, I’m so sorry. But the villagers just would not fucking listen. They wouldn’t help me! And they called me a witcher and accused me of all kinds of things!” 

Geralt’s chest heaved quite heavily up and down, his face red like a sun giving off a warning. “Do you know what I do when that happens?” He asked quietly.

“You ignore them,” Said Jaskier, even quieter. 

“ _I FUCKING IGNORE THEM!_ ” Roared Geralt, catapulting the bag out of his hand. The remaining coins scattered throughout the walls and ceiling of the cave. Jaskier shielded himself, wincing whenever one pelted his back or head. Geralt howled after they had all settled, slamming his head back onto his makeshift pillow, hands pressed to his eyeballs. “And that son of a bitch was right! They’re fake!” 

Jaskier curled his face out of his hands, heart beating fast with the anticipation of another outburst. “Really? How could you tell?”

Geralt coughed for a moment before answering, “They made dull sounds. Real coins make a ping.” He shakily sat up and Jaskier did not help him to do so. “I don’t have Roach with me.”

Jaskier waved away his form of apology. “I can go back and get Roach for you when you’re better. Where’s she at?”

“Milhead.” 

“Oh,” The half-melted snow shifted in the caldron, burning and freezing drops alike landing on Jaskier’s cheeks. “So about Milhead…” 

Geralt rolled his eyes. “What about it?”

Jaskier poked at the melting ice with the dagger anxiously. “I told them that neither you nor any of the other witchers would ever set foot in their town again and that they would all get eaten by the remaining monsters in the forest.” 

“Jaskier…” 

“Well, you never do it!”

“Because I can’t afford to!” Geralt ran a large palm down his ashen face. “If I told every town to piss off because they treated me poorly I wouldn’t have any work.”

“Their words don’t bother you?”

“Sometimes,” Geralt admitted. “But I deal with it. I don’t tell them I won’t help them anymore.”

“So was that wrong of me to do?”

A sigh followed and then: “No, not necessarily. You were doing what you thought was best. And I don’t think the people of Milhead would call on me again anyway. They don’t like witchers.” 

Jaskier snorted, allowing himself half of a smile. “They thought I was you. Called me a ‘monster fucker’. If that’s not pure idiotic hatred I’m not sure what is.” 

“I hope Roach is okay. They know she’s my horse.”

“I’m sure she is. Now, hurry up with that other squirrel.” 

VI

The mint and squirrel stew was not the best thing Jaskier had ever eaten. It certainly wasn’t the worst, that title went to whatever Geralt called a jellied moose nose, but the watery, gamey flavor left something to be desired. The steam and the mint seemed to help Geralt clear his sinus; he was coughing a lot less while they slurped in silence. Jaskier stabbed a chunk of squirrel and chewed on it for a while. It would probably taste better if their circumstances weren’t in the shitter. 

Jaskier had hoped that food would revive Geralt a little more, at least to the point where he wasn’t worried he’d fall over whenever he sat up. However, he still looked drawn out, more like an artist's rough sketch rather than a finished oil painting. His nose was red and raw from rubbing it with his arm. Jaskier’s hopes were soon dashed as fast as the sun was setting over the horizon.

“Do you feel a little better?” 

“No.” 

The way Geralt barked at him let Jaskier know that he really shouldn’t open his mouth for the next couple hours.

It wasn’t telling Geralt that Jaskier thought the town of Milhead didn’t deserve any help from witchers anymore that set him off. It wasn’t even that Jaskier left Roach there, at least, Jaskier didn’t _think_ that was the problem. Despite what both Geralt and Torvin said, Geralt really was a shit conversationalist and an even shitter communicator. Whatever he was actually mad about was about as clear to Jaskier as muddy waters. 

The only thing that broke the silence was Geralt’s coughing. It had gotten worse in the past couple of hours, so much so that his body, usually solid like a rock and immovable as a mountain, was shaking like a mighty earthquake. Fits lasted between thirty seconds and a minute and Jaskier’s stomach lurched forward as he realized they’d probably only get longer and more intense. He didn’t know how to help Geralt, much as he wanted to. Letting him proverbially lick his own wounds was probably the best course of action, but Jaskier was a mother hen at heart, and it hurt to not do much more than look at him like a kicked puppy, maybe offer warm water every hour. 

Jaskier wasn’t mad that he had gone through what he had for Geralt. Ordinary people might. Yennefer probably would be. But he wasn’t Yennefer and he tried to do the exact opposite of whatever she did. Be a mysterious bitch? No thank you, Jaskier would take the personality of a slightly drunk saint. Magically cursing people to do their bidding? Jaskier preferred to persuade people pleasantly by song. There were probably good parts of her. She had helped Jaskier when he was sick with the Djinn’s curse. But he was a jealous person at heart (which was something they both had in common, though Jaskier would die before he would admit it) and hated when the spotlight was taken away from him. She took all of Geralt’s attention, bewitched him, mind, body, and soul.

Maybe he was mad because he’d been trying for the better part of a decade and a half to get close to Geralt, who pushed back with the force of an angry ram, and Yennefer sat there in a circle screaming her head off, tits out for the world to see, and Geralt was infatuated with her instantly. 

Jaskier really didn’t see the appeal of chasing down _one woman_ when there was an entire world of them to fuck. But apparently Geralt was a swan. They mated for life. 

Yennefer might’ve been a black widow: only staying with Geralt until he fulfilled a specific purpose and then she would wash her hands of him.

He could imagine Yennefer biting Geralt’s head off for not building a better rapport with the people of Milhead. Geralt wouldn’t necessarily lie there and take it, but he’d be a lot less hostile to her than he was to Jaskier. 

At one point he saw Geralt’s cup of watery stew slip from his limp hands. Jaskier caught it before it spilled and poured it outside. There was still plenty of food left for them in the cauldron, so he set it on the other side of the cave to freeze overnight. Then he knelt by Geralt once more, catching his temple in the palm of his head as it almost careened into a jagged piece of wall. 

“Geralt, you okay?” Jaskier almost feared there would not be an answer. He suddenly felt chilly - both of them did - like they were caught in the frozen wilderness together with no one to cling to but themselves. 

“Mm…” He wheezed out, eyes fluttering open a little. Geralt, then realizing Jaskier was holding his head, sharply sat up. “Fuck, how long was I out?” 

“No more than five seconds.” 

Geralt blinked back up at him. “I don’t remember falling asleep.” 

“You’re sick with a fever. I won’t expect you to remember most things.” Jaskier took one of the sticks and poked the ember-filled fire, adding another log to it. “Do you know who I am, who you are, and where we are?” 

“I’m not a fucking idiot, Jaskier.” 

Jaskier smiled to himself, glad that the flames of Geralt’s intolerance for treating him childishly were still brightly burning. “You’re the one who let a Gravier knock you senseless.”

“I’ll knock you senseless,” Geralt grumbled as he laid upon the bag of leaves, positioning himself under the cloak. 

“Ooh, I’m so afraid of the big, bad, sick witcher in the corner. I’m shaking in my boots.” 

“You should be…” And he had slipped back into slumber just as quickly as he came out of it. 

Shadows danced along the cave wall, forever in contention with the light of the fire. They could not exist in harmony. One had to triumph over the other. Jaskier personally rooted for the shadows. Man had always wanted the light to win because light meant the monsters wouldn’t come and eat their offspring or their chickens. They abhorred shadows, feared them like children feared darkness, constantly trying to stave it, to suffocate it. But they never looked at shadows the way Jaskier did. 

The light was the oppressor. The light was once the little thing that took down a mighty empire. Shadows held just as much life, if not more, but you had to be gentle and swift to find it. In the shadows, you could not be quick to judge. You could live there just as well as you could in light. But one had to coexist, had to learn to harmonize with the shadows and their way of life. Geralt had shown him how to do this, but even before their paths merged and their stars crossed Jaskier had always preferred them to the light. 

He picked up his lute, settled the cold wood against his warm knee. Jaskier strummed once ever so gently before tucking the cloak tighter around Geralt. He tuned the lute and fingerpicked a random song, letting the music take him wherever it wanted. Jaskier was never picky about the songs he played. He was just happy his fingers weren’t too numb to not play the lute at all. 

There were not many stars that he could see outside of the cave. Pine trees scored the night sky, making the silver pinpricks nearly invisible.

Now, Jaskier liked stars. They were not intrusive. They did not steal the life of shadows, change them until they were so bright they burned away altogether. Stars helped to illuminate the beauty of everything around them. They did not overtake shadows, just showed how lovely everything was while swaddled in them. He looked at Geralt’s hair, looked at how softly silver it was and smiled contently, fingers still picking at the lute strings confidently and contentedly.

VII

Any feeling of tranquility or serenity Jaskier felt in the early throes of the night had evaporated hours ago. He’d fallen asleep on his arm again, but only for the better part of an hour before Geralt rudely woke him up, hacking and spitting out what seemed to be half a lung. Jaskier helped him to sit up, sat behind him to support the majority of his body weight, and rubbed his back. He leaned his face against Geralt’s convulsing back, feeling the thick tendrils of muscle convulse. His eyes started to close exhaustedly whenever Geralt took a short reprieve, though they snapped open when the fits began again. 

“Ja-sk-i-er,” Geralt’s voice tore through ragged breaths. Jaskier patted his shoulder blades soothingly. 

“Shh, shh, it’s alright. I’m here.” Jaskier hummed another sleepy thought after this, though the words were never formed. 

His entire body ached from the miles he ran and the weight he carried and he just wanted a nice warm bath and a nice long sleep. But Geralt needed him and Jaskier had failed him enough times on this trip alone that he felt he owed every single second he could give to him. “What can I do? How can I help?”

“S-t-ay,” came the broken reply. 

Jaskier buried his nose into Geralt’s back, a sharp physical reminder that he was _there_. “You’re my best friend. I could never leave you.”

“W-w-water.” 

Like a blind man, Jaskier sluggishly moved, revitalizing the almost deceased fire into a small flicker before getting a cupful of snow to melt. He waited in the middle of the fire and Geralt, cross-legged and drooping. 

It seemed like Geralt’s lungfuls of air were never enough. He breathed greedily like a man who had nearly drowned, but his breaths were shallow and quick and did not do much in terms of oxygenating his body. Jaskier watched him rock back and forth like a madman, so he put a hand on his wrist. Not too much pressure. Not threatening. Just light enough to help ground him.

“Don’t work yourself into a panic, Geralt. It’ll only make things worse.” 

“Mm…” He sounded more like a strangled goat than a man.

“Here’s your water,” Jaskier didn’t trust him not to spill it all over himself, what with how shaky his hands were, so he tipped the cup slightly to his lips. Geralt drank like he breathed. “Slow. You’ll choke if you inhale it.”

It didn’t take long for the cup to become empty again. Dutifully Jaskier filled it once more with snow and placed it on a hot log to melt. Geralt’s coughing seemed to have subsided in the meantime, so Jaskier started to nod back to sleep once more, legs and arms crossed, head bobbing to the tempo of exhaustion. 

“Jaskier…” A sharp tug from the back of his shirt, away from the enclosing heat. “Fuck, Jaskier. Go back to sleep. I can’t have you dead on your feet.” 

He shook his head, voice whining with insistence. “‘M fine, Geralt.” 

“You nearly,” A few rough coughs interrupted his gravelly voice, “fell into the fire.” 

“Well, maybe I’m not tired. Maybe I’ve got a death wish. Ever thought of that?” 

Geralt hummed, amused. “Often. Do you?” 

A small smile, sweetly devilish, rounded out Jaskier’s impish and shadowed face. “Only sometimes.” He paused for a minute to hand Geralt his cup of water. “Besides, I would feel bad if I went back to sleep.” 

“You’ve never cared if I stayed up all night before.”

“No,” he agreed, “But we were never in this situation before. You’re sick and injured. Roach is trapped in a town that wants us gone and probably prefers us dead. And I’m useless. The least I can do is stay up and keep guard.” 

For a moment Geralt didn’t speak. He drank his water in a thoughtful manner and coughed into his elbow. “I don’t think you’re useless.” 

Jaskier laughed in a low register, finally allowing himself to lay down on the ground of dead pine needles and leaves. His hands went behind his head, one leg resting atop his knee. From this view, he could see a little more of the night sky. A little bit more of all the tiny specks of silver stars. As far as he could tell there was no moon. There had been one at the beginning of his journey, a small, disappearing one, but it was there nonetheless. That probably meant that Jaskier had set out a week ago. The lady would not wait for more than two and a half weeks for Jaskier’s arrival. 

A part of him knew he liked it better in the barren cave, warm in the womb of rock and fire, playing nurse to a petulant manchild than in the near orgasmic atmosphere of a royal party. There was no doubt that the soon to be coronated king and his sister would be a better company. They wouldn’t lash out and scream at him for trying his best. They’d sing along to his catchy tunes, happily tell tales of drunken knights or slaying armies for future ballads, and cause him no headaches. 

But they didn’t know Jaskier. They’d heard about him. They most likely knew what alcohol he favored, which finger foods he treasured above all others. So even if they could offer Jaskier all of the things he craved and yearned for as an entertainer, and even though he was attracted to the limelight like a moth to the flame, it was Geralt that Jaskier would choose again and again without hesitation. 

It was the little things, like what he had just whispered, that made Jaskier appreciate the crooked thing between them that he hesitantly called friendship. 

“I appreciate your newfound sentimentality, Geralt, but we both know that’s not true. I condemned a city to a slow death. And I stole. And I didn’t get Roach back for you. I can’t do anything right.” 

“You made soup.”

“It was shit soup. You can’t call it soup. It’s water with mint and squirrel. You’ve made better with less.” 

“Jaskier, you think you’re useless because you’re trying to be me.” 

He frowned at the stars above him. They seemed ever so slightly dimmer. Maybe it was the trees blowing in the wind that was blocking out the light. Maybe it was the sun starting to colonize once again. “And? Is there anything wrong with that?” 

Nearly silent came the reply, “Absolutely.” 

“Bullshit! No! Fuck that! I don’t accept that! Do you know, I’ve never seen you lose a fight. You’re never afraid! You let shit just run off of you like boulders sliding down a mountain. If they put you in a desert with a knife and a pail you could survive a month with nothing else. If I could be even a little bit like you… I would be so happy. I wouldn’t drag you down anymore.” 

“You don’t want to be like me. I’m a monster.” 

“Don’t-”

“-say those things’? Is that what you were going to say? Jaskier, if I had the choice to switch lives with a human, if that was fucking capable, I would do it in a heartbeat. I look at my hands, at my face, and I see nothing but a killer. There is no redeeming what I’ve done. You can sing your praises about me all you want. Tell the world I’m a friend to humans. It doesn’t matter. You can change the opinion of every single person out in the world. It wouldn’t change how I view myself. And I-”

Geralt doubled over and coughed for a long while until long strings of yellow phlegm dripped from his chapped lips like strings of spider silk. He gasped the next sentence out, breathing ragged and crackly. “Quit trying to play witcher. I don’t want you to turn into me. Stop trying to be like me. I like _you_ as _you are_.” 

There was a lump in Jaskier’s throat that, try as he might, he could not swallow. 

Then he asked the question he’d been wondering about ever since he’d found Geralt in the snow. “Am I enough?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.” 

“No, it absolutely does. You’re my best friend, Geralt, and you may think that I’m useful or whatever lie you tell yourself at night, but that doesn’t mean I’m enough for you, and I need to know. Out of everyone in the entire fucking world I only care what you think about me. So answer the fucking question. Am I enough?” 

No answer came from Geralt’s lips. Jaskier scoffed. “I figured.”

VIII

Easily staying awake for the rest of the night did not shock Jaskier. He alternated between silently rubbing Geralt’s back and knuckles as he spat out a mute palette of yellow, green, and light red, and then sulking near the entrance of the cave when Geralt rested. The coughing attacks got progressively worse and happened every fifteen minutes or so. Jaskier knew that when daylight came Geralt would be more pissy and irritable than normal, that the purple bags under his eyes would weigh his mood down into blackness. The best thing Jaskier could do for him was to keep him warm and give him space. Admittedly he was hideously terrible at the latter, but maybe today he wouldn’t be. Maybe knowing that Geralt found him to be less than suitable would shut him up for once. 

Weak sunlight eventually filtered in and failed to warm Jaskier up. He let Geralt stay curled up in his cloak, which now probably stank of sweat and mud and other dead things. All Jaskier had was his fur gloves and he was thankful. He could lose all his toes to frostbite, maybe a leg if it really came down to it. But his fingers were his livelihood. If he lost one his days of being a well-respected bard would be over and done with. However, Jaskier started to shiver during his midnight vigil and he hadn’t been able to stop. He had hoped that when the sun came the clouds would dissipate, but the clouds were dark and grey and were more than likely going to bring snow. 

At least it wasn’t bright out and Geralt could rest again. Scarlet fever spots were high on his cheekbones. Sweat ran like a river down his temple. Jaskier would almost use the word frail to describe how Geralt looked. He decided to go with ever-so-slightly-weakened. If Geralt was frail then they were in trouble, end of the story.

If it was springtime Jaskier could go out and prove that he could do something right, but the best he could do given his current circumstances was go and set up the traps he’d run away with. So he exited the cave and silently began his mission. 

The snow had melted from the previous day of heat, so much so that Jaskier could see blades of grass poking through some of the white patches. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be that way for long. Even so, it would benefit him to put down the traps. They were made for squirrels and rabbits. Small creatures that thought anything vaguely boxed shaped was a home. Jaskier had watched Geralt set up enough of these traps to know to set it up against a tree or a stump, and if he had it available to him, put some dried grass or acorns at the far end of it. 

Jaskier had finished setting up the last trap a few meters away from the cave when it finally started to snow. Mother Nature had it out for him today. She had it out for him since last week, actually. Winter was a bitch. She was her mother’s daughter, after all. Jaskier didn’t really expect anything different. 

He missed summer. She rebelled against her other siblings - although her stubborn streak did lend her to be a bit hot-headed at times, and sometimes she would cry and storm for days on end relentlessly - and didn’t cause him any grief. 

By the time Jaskier crunched his way back into the mouth of the cave the fire was low, so he put another log on it. Geralt would need to be better in by the day after tomorrow at the latest, lest they run out of wood and freeze to death. The world outside was a blur of white. Jaskier squeezed his numb toes, letting his sopping wet shoes dry by the flames. The tips were so vermillion they were almost purple. 

Suddenly a warm, heavy weight was pressed on his shoulders. “Take it. You’re shivering so much I can’t hear myself think.” 

Jaskier shrugged the cloak off, reluctant to accept pity. “I’m not the sick who’s sick.” 

“I’m better now.”

A sigh of annoyance issued from his mouth, white and warm. “Stop arguing with me and take the damn cloak! Melitele, Geralt, you’re not better, so stop acting like a goddamn jackass!” 

There was no reply to his outburst except the cloak being taken off of his shoulders entirely. To conserve what little heat he had formed during those precious seconds Jaskier wrapped his arms around himself, staring into the flames intently. He wished he could swallow them. His fiery anger alone was not enough to abate the chill he was enveloped in. 

Geralt hummed, but it wasn’t his usual ‘I’m content with the situation at hand’ hum. Jaskier turned his head to a startling degree, his muscles screaming at the uncomfortable position they’d been put in. He watched him scratch his chest at first and then rap against it with a fist. The breaths he seemed to be taking were deep and raspy. Clearly something was wrong. 

“Chest pain?” Jaskier looked at the rocky ceiling of the cave, letting his cheeks puff out as he exhaled for a long time. It wasn’t Geralt’s fault he was sick. It was Torvin’s and the gravier’s. Or maybe it was Geralt’s fault entirely, Jaskier wasn’t sure, but it didn’t feel right to kick a man when he was already down. He blinked away his fury until he felt nothing. “How bad?” 

“Five. Maybe a six.” Geralt dissolved into a symphony of coughs with the next inhale he took, folding in on himself like a sheet of parchment. Jaskier scratched the back of his head and mumbled quietly to himself. He scooted himself over to Geralt and put a hand on his shoulder that was promptly whacked off. “Don’t.”

“Alright,” Agreed Jaskier. “I’ll just sit in silence, then.” 

A horrible hacking sound issued from Geralt’s lips. A deformed wet yellow ball was spat onto the floor. “N-No. Just… tell me a story.” 

“You hate my stories.” 

“I’m coughing up a lung. Distract me.” 

Jaskier eyed Geralt carefully. He wondered if the fever had made him go crazy. He indulged him anyway.

“Not very far away and not very long ago, there lived a family of oil.” Jaskier tried the opening sentence on his tongue. It sounded okay to him; maybe a little cliche, but all the best tall tales were. “Besides not having bodies to walk around in they were, all things considered, quite normal. The father, a dingy yellow in a dark green bottle, did not like to be clean. Whenever his wife tried to bath him he sat on top of the water like scum. The mother’s one wish in life was for her family to be spotless and pristine. She had little sprigs of sage within her, showing the human household how worldly and expensive she was. Her daughter sat behind her, peppers stuffed inside of her red-tinted body, and often watched her mother and father drip away into pans and pots-”

Geralt spat a green thing out from behind his teeth. “This is ridiculous.” 

“Yeah, it’s a fairy tale. If it’s not ridiculous you’re not telling it right. Anyway, the daughter sat there, and she was more decorative than anything else. After some time, when her father had been spared to quite literally an inch of his life and her mother had been completely used up, she became jealous. Was she not good enough to be uncorked? Why weren’t there any greasy fingerprints on her slender bottle? Her mother had flavored mushrooms and chicken. Her father was used for lubricating pasta and dough. But she? She collected dust like a doll. 

One day, after a servant had taken her mother’s empty round bottle off the shelf and threw it away, a young boy with pimples saw the daughter gleaming in the bright afternoon sun. The peppers within her shined wetly and the boy was drawn to her undoubted spiciness.”

“Does this boy fuck the oil bottle?” Geralt wheezed. 

“He does not! But thank you for paying attention,” Jaskier nudged Geralt’s shoulder with his head. “No, this young boy is a cook. Or at least, he _wants_ to be a cook. He’s not very good, but he experiments and he tries. But he saw this bottle of oil, and the daughter wished with all her might that she too would be as well-loved as her parents had been. The boy had left to grab some beef, but came back and put a pan on top of a lit fire. Then, finally, the moment the girl had been waiting for her entire life had come. The pimply boy picked her up, poured a few of her peppered drops onto the skillet and she _screamed_. 

Her insides were being eaten up by heathenous heat, her voice sizzling as she dissolved. Her parents… was this what they felt every single time? What seemed like a lifetime of agony, was this what plagued them nearly every night? And her mother… Her poor, clean mother. The daughter just screamed as more was added to the pot. Two red peppers flopped limply on top of her. She wished, fleetingly, that her dream hadn’t come true. She wished that her mother and father had peppers inside of them, too. She wished that she could fling herself at the boy and scar his ugly fat face. She wished all of this and more, and she was about to make another wish, but her sizzling screams had been muffled by the beef, and she could speak no more.”

Jaskier ended his story like he had begun it, confused but not disappointed. It had a moral to it as it should. It wasn’t overly long or descriptive. He’d definitely made up worse. He was about to ask Geralt what he thought of it when he found that a sleeping Geralt had slipped his head into Jaskier’s lap during the story. There was a nasty, wet crackling sound whenever he exhaled that worried Jaskier, but he decided not to disturb him. Last night was rough, after all, and sleep would no doubt do him some good. 

Jaskier smiled fondly, letting his fingers dance upon Geralt’s wispy hair lightly. “I told you you’d hate my story. It put you right to sleep.” 

The howling wind was now his only companion. It had only gotten worse outside since the morning, and with the sun blocked by a curtain of white Jaskier had no idea what time it was. He could only understand the passage of time itself by looking at his toes, which were now less lethal reddish-purple and more a normal flesh color. He pulled the purple cloak across Geralt’s back, which caused him to squeeze his arms around Jaskier’s lower back and thighs. 

“You’re okay, Geralt. I’ve got you.” 

Being this close to Geralt, _letting_ them be this close… Jaskier couldn’t help but wonder what Yennefer would have done in this situation. He hadn’t seen her in years, probably close to half a decade now, but he had a sneaking suspicion Geralt, while he maybe had not gone on any other adventures with her, had definitely tried to track her down. He was absolutely smitten and no matter how hard Jaskier tried to be enough he wasn’t going to be. Yennefer had magicked her chaotic self into Geralt’s slow-beating heart and there she would remain forever. 

Yennefer, being an all-powerful sorceress, would probably be a lot better at cooking, considering she could teleport from place to place. Jaskier amended that thought. Yennefer would probably toss Geralt into a portal that ended at an inn or someone’s abandoned summer palace. She seemed like the type of person to hate winter even more than Jaskier did. Maybe he hated her so much because they were eerily similar. 

For starters, they were both entertainers. Jaskier was a bard. He didn’t have much of a choice given his path in life. If one was on the road with Geralt one amused or one murdered. Yennefer did both and did both with such grace and ease that Jaskier wasn’t positive she didn’t pop out of her mother’s womb with a comb and a knife in either hand. 

They also clung to Geralt as if their lives depended on it. Maybe Yennefer’s life actually _did_ depend on Geralt. Jaskier had never been told what his third wish had been. He himself just thought that Geralt needed a best friend, someone to take the bulk of his anger so his clients didn’t have to, someone to change the fate of how witchers were viewed. He admired Geralt first and foremost and did what he could to ease the burden of being knowingly hated for simply existing. Yennefer, in all likelihood, loved him. But what Jaskier had heard and seen from her, Yennefer’s love was poisonous like cyanide. 

Jaskier hoped she hadn’t always been like this, that, like Geralt, teachings, and training had plucked all innocence from their childish hearts. Maybe they had once been baby birds on the edge of a nest. They were not ready to fly but their mentors pushed them over the edge anyway, impatient with their lack of progress. Their trust and unrequited love for others would logically break underneath them. The wind-battered them into misshapen souls, ones with eyes so keen and sharp it hurt to look at in direct sunlight. 

Yennefer was a mystery. She probably always would be. But she would no doubt be a better person for Geralt to cling to. If she was here Geralt would no doubt be up and out the door already: horribly stupid and horribly infatuated. 

But he and Yennefer were similar where it counted the most (and also, coincidentally, why they probably couldn’t stand each other): they would lay down their life for Geralt without any hesitation. Jaskier never knew he had a feral bone in his body until he watched all the injustice happening towards Geralt. He had never wanted to - with the exception of Valdo Marx - claw his way into somebody’s chest, break their ribs one by one like they were mere roasted bird bones, and squeeze their beating heart until it burst, blood squelching between his fingers, until he had seen someone spit on Geralt’s face. There was no doubt in Jaskier’s mind that he would stand in front of a broadsword for him, drink poison for him, or anything else of the sort. 

Geralt’s breathing broke him out of his spiral staircase of thoughts, ragged and uneven. Jaskier was still hesitant about waking him up but remembered that the mint and the steam from the stew last night had done wonders for Geralt’s symptoms. 

Tenderly reaching over the sleeping body Jaskier grabbed the cauldron and placed it over the fire.

“I’ll make you better, Geralt,” He promised, though the hot temperature of Geralt’s forehead didn’t make him confident. “I’ll make you better, and then we’ll get Roach and ride far away from here.”

IX

The snowstorm ending and Geralt waking up happened simultaneously. Jaskier had hoped to go check the traps but had only made out about six feet away from the cave when Geralt had started gasping loudly for air, prompting him to sprint back and hold his face over the boiling pot. He hadn’t left since. It was black now, both in terms of the sky and in terms of how optimistic Jaskier was when it came to Geralt surviving his ever-worsening illness. 

Geralt had not recognized Jaskier when he had awoken and had kicked him hard in the shin. His eyes were less like gold now; they were akin to a dark urine color, glassy and unfocused. It had taken Jaskier several hard shakes of Geralt’s shoulders and saying his own name to get him to realize who Jaskier was.

The fever had taken hold of Geralt’s mind, truly and completely and deeply, scaring Jaskier better than any monster encounter had. Between his shuddering, weak gasps of shallow air he bellowed out nonsense, or cried out for his mother, or begged for them to stop. Jaskier’s heart shattered as he tried to pin Geralt down. 

“Stop!” Screamed Geralt, fighting against Jaskier’s grip. “I don’t want it! Please! I’m not… Don’t make me a… a _monster_!” 

Jaskier rapidly shook his head, hands losing their grip on Geralt’s sweaty wrists. “You’re not a monster, Geralt. I promise. I’m so sorry. You’re ill, you don’t know what’s happening.”

The reply came like the biting wind as Geralt flipped over, expertly securing Jaskier to the ground. “I know _exactly_ what’s happening! You’re trying to kill me, whoever you are, but you won’t get the chance.” 

Geralt applied pressure to Jaskier’s throat with one hand, the other holding both of Jaskier’s hands above his head.

“I’m Jaskier. _Your_ Jaskier. Remember, from five seconds ago?”

“No! I don’t know anyone by that name!” His head thrashed from side to side. “You’re lying. That’s what you all do!” 

Jaskier rasped through timid gulps of air. Black spots swam before his vision as the pressure got tighter and tighter. “Geralt, I promise nothing bad is going to happen to you. Please calm down, I’m telling you the truth. My name is Jaskier. I met you ten years ago. You hated me from the moment you saw me, but I _loved_ you. I’m your friend. I would never hurt you. Wherever you think you are… You’re not. You’re here, with me, and we’re safe. Melitele, please, believe me. Please…” 

Jaskier squeezed his eyes shut as he felt his body rise and fall in an arrhythmic manner. Tears rolled down his hot face. Was this how he was going to die? By the fevered hand of his best friend? “Please, please, please.”

Just as unconsciousness was about to wash over him like a wave, the heaviness of Geralt’s body rolled off of him. Jaskier sucked in the deepest breath he could manage, gasping like a fish out of water for a minute or two, massaging his already bruising neck. “Than… Thank you.” 

“Run.” 

Jaskier coughed at the word and almost laughed at it until he looked at Geralt. He was curled in as small of a ball as he could make himself, knees tucked up to his chin, arms wrapped around his legs. His hair was wild and his eyes were wide. 

“What? Geralt, no. Don’t be silly. Why would I run?”

“I’m going to kill you!” 

“You won’t.” 

Geralt roared, the ending of every single word echoing throughout the small cave. “I will! I don’t… Jaskier, I’m confused! I don’t know where I am, or.. Or what time I’m in! I thought you were one of those nameless faces at Kaer Morhen that made me a witcher! So do yourself a favor before I _really_ choke you to death and get out of here.” He threw the cloak to Jaskier but did not look him in the eyes. 

Gently, as if he were in danger of startling a deer, Jaskier stretched his arm out until his fingertips barely brushed Geralt’s shoulder. “Look at me, Geralt.” His voice was soft and soothing, the kind he used almost exclusively for the few children at his shows. 

He let his thumb rub calming circles over Geralt’s shirt, over and over again; consistent like a heartbeat. Eventually, yellow eyes met blue in the pitch of the night. 

“There is absolutely nothing that you could ever say to me or do to me that would make me leave you. You’re my best friend. Do you discount my loyalty so easily that I would leave you after you choked me?” 

Geralt shook his head. “Not your loyalty, no. But I don’t underestimate a human’s animalistic nature to survive.” 

“Oh!” Jaskier allowed himself a small chuckle. “Self-preservation? Yeah, that went out the window when we first met, my dear witcher.”

“Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”

“Not really,” Jaskier shrugged. “I mean, I _do_ have a gig. This Lady asked me to perform at her brother’s coronation, and the sooner I get there the greater the reward is that I will receive.”

“Then go there.”

“What, and miss a perfectly good opportunity to mother-hen you to death? I’m good right here, thanks. Now stick your head above the boiling soup. The steam and mint will help you to breathe better.” 

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Geralt mumbled, but complied anyway. 

The rest of the night passed without much consequence, though later Jaskier would look back and call these few precious hours ‘the calm before the storm’. Geralt coughed and hacked his way through dinner, which eventually got another squirrel added to it thanks to one of the traps outside. His face was red and soft like a boiled tomato, but his eyes never gained that bright, near burnished gold look that Jaskier desired to see. They remained stagnant and strange, which made the man himself foreign. 

There were no more issues of different times or different places. Jaskier was able to pat Geralt’s back and work soothing circles into his shoulders when an attack overcame him. He sat in front of the fire like a forgotten child, hunched as if he was trying not to take up too much space. It couldn’t have been comfortable and Jaskier tried to coax him into a better position. 

“Leave me be, bard.” Geralt grumbled, voice hoarse, and raspy. 

Jaskier tsked with his tongue and grabbed the satchel from the other side of the cave. He refilled it to sizable plumpness and placed it in his lap. “You know I can’t do that.”

“You could if you tried.”

“But I won’t. Come, lay down and try to sleep.” 

Geralt blinked once at the bag and once at Jaskier. “Absolutely not.” 

“Why not? You’d lay in Yennefer’s lap!” 

Dark crimson splotched his already red face. “Don’t talk about her!” 

Jaskier leaned back on his arms, sporting a shit-eating grin. “Somebody’s in looooovvveeee.” 

“Somebody’s going to get their fucking teeth kicked in.” 

“I promise not to speak the rest of the night if you lay on the pillow. You’re making my bones ache just looking at you sit in that twisted position.” 

Tentatively Geralt scooted towards Jaskier, one eyebrow raised. “Not a word?” 

Jaskier crossed his heart. “Not a word.” 

Within seconds, Geralt was snoring on Jaskier’s lap, body limp and hot.

X

Something was wrong. 

Something was abominably, hideously, monstrously wrong. 

Jaskier woke up in a cold sweat, sucking in the crisp night air, blinking hard to wake himself up from the dead sleep he’d sunk into. Blackness was all around him, absorbing his body in suffocating shadows. Something heavy lay on him from his pelvis downward, and, for a moment, he was confused.

Falling asleep had not been his plan. He needed to stay up and keep vigil because Geralt could not do it. When he was better and able to get to a suitable town _then_ Jaskier could sleep. But no matter how hard he pinched his arm or slapped his cheeks Jaskier still succumbed to slumber. There was no moon or stars out to tell him the time. Clouds covered the entire night sky. 

The fire had gone out some time ago. The ashes were not smoking. Jaskier blindly reached out and felt velvety soot cover his fingers. There was a chill in the cave now, but at least Geralt had the cloak to keep him warm, and at least Jaskier had Geralt. 

He reached out for some flint in a hurried manner, still feeling the pricks of panic on the back of his neck. Jaskier didn’t know what was wrong, but he felt like throwing up anyway. After feeling around wildly for a couple of seconds he was able to locate one piece of flint. He assumed the other was beneath an immovable Geralt, thick and solid like a rock.

“Geralt, hey, wake up. You’re sleeping on the flint.” Jaskier shook his shoulder gently, but absolutely nothing happened. No grumbling, no smacking, nothing. 

Then Jaskier noticed how silent the cave was. Then the real, pure, unadulterated horror set in.

“Fuck - _Geralt!_ ” Jaskier called out, letting fear alter his voice until it was not his own. He pulled himself out from underneath Geralt and put an ear to where his slow-beating heart was. 

But there was no heartbeat. 

There was no air filling and deflating his useless lungs. 

The only thing that indicated Geralt had not been a corpse for hours upon end was the fact that his body was not cold or stiff. That did not mean, of course, that he was alive. And Jaskier knew that perfectly well, but he still started to push down on his ribs as hard as he could manage. 

“You’re _not_ dying on _me_ , you asshole!” Jaskier screamed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Die somewhere else! Die on top of Yennefer’s naked body! Or in a selkimore’s stomach! But _not on me! Not while I’m around!_ Do you understand, you fucking bastard?!” 

He let his lips touch Geralt’s, not noticing for a second how thin they were, how chapped they were, how indifferent they felt. There was no temperature to any of his body; it was all uniformly tepid. Jaskier half-sobbed, half-breathed into Geralt’s mouth, and came up crying as he resumed chest compressions. 

“Geralt, come on! Don’t do this to me!” Jaskier’s elbow snapped out of its locked position and he fell on top of Geralt’s body, letting a mournful howl drip out of his lips. It wasn’t _a_ body. It wasn’t _the_ body. It was _Geralt’s_ body. Jaskier couldn’t remove the person from a cadaver. He never could. He loved too much and too deeply and it was unfair to the life the deceased person lived. 

“Please, please, _please_! I’m begging you!” Sobs rang out of his mouth, hands running down the sides of Geralt’s emotionless face. Jaskier passed another breath into him. Again he tried to press on his ribs and again he fell. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll go do the job. I’ll get Roach. I won’t come near you again but just… Just breathe. Do me one favor, you selfish fuck, and BREATHE!” 

Tears slid down his cold cheeks and he wiped them away harshly. If their roles were switched Jaskier could almost guarantee that Geralt would not be crying. _You have to be better_ , he told himself. _You have to be enough. Become emotionless. You have to do this. Be what he needs you to be._

Steeling himself Jaskier started chest compressions again, yelling with every downward push. He blinked away the tears as they formed and as Geralt’s ribs cracked. “I made you a promise. You are not going to die here.” 

Before Jaskier could touch their mouths together again Geralt inhaled sharply, sending Jaskier flying off his chest like a startled cat, back smacking against the wall with such intensity that for a moment it was him who could not breathe. 

“Jask...ier…” Murmured Geralt, his inhales and exhales more wheezes than anything else. Jaskier crawled to him, put his hands on both of his cheeks, and touched their foreheads together. 

“Thank Melitele,” He whispered, taking a few deep breaths to steel himself. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Geralt squirmed within his grasp. Jaskier kept muttering to himself, feeling that if he stopped chanting or let go that the air within Geralt would be squeezed out again. Soon, though, he thought he should let go, regardless of his fears. Geralt did not like to be touched at the best of times. He could only stand a hand on the shoulder for three seconds before he lashed out.

“Do you think you can light a fire for yourself?” Jaskier asked him soberly. He wished there was a light between them so he would convey the gravity of the situation that happened. Words failed him. 

“Yes.”

Jaskier hung his head, letting cold air pass through his nose and chill his nerves. “Alright, good. You do that. I’m going to get ready to set out towards Milhead and get Roach for you. I might be a while. I don’t know what sort of debt you’ve racked up to the stable workers. But all I want you to do is make a fire and stay awake, though I suppose the most important thing you could do is to continue to breathe.”

If there were complaints from Geralt’s end Jaskier did not hear them, though whether it was because Geralt had not yet recovered his voice or because Jaskier himself was not present within his own body remained to be seen. 

_Geralt is fine. He’s alive._ Jaskier told himself, blindly reaching out to find the armor he had peeled off Geralt that first day in the cave. It would be dry now, and although it wouldn’t do much in keeping him warm it would protect him from spears and swords and arrows. No doubt Torvin and the rest of the town expected Jaskier and Geralt to be miles away by now. Seeing one of them in black armor would certainly send some of the men into a murderous frenzy. 

Finally, Jaskier found what he was looking for, and his jerky hands stuttered and shook as he slipped the armor on and tried to fasten it to his body. The nervousness of seeing his best friend’s dead body for the second time this week was taking a toll on his psyche. Jaskier failed to get his fingers to stop shaking, to stop feeling numb. To think he nearly lost Geralt because he couldn’t do _one simple task_. 

“Stupid,” He berated himself, trying to poke a buckle through a tiny leather hole. “You’re so stupid.”

“Jask-” 

“Don’t!” Jaskier hysterically screamed, dropping the strap of leather. “Don’t talk! Just focus on breathing. If you stopped I don’t think I could revive you again… Not a third time, anyway…” 

It took him more time than he would ever care to admit to putting Geralt’s armor on. In those suffocating minutes, Geralt sparked a fire into existence, yellow eyes and yellow skin glowing like melting wax in the light. Jaskier couldn’t swallow the ever-present lump in his throat away and avoided Geralt’s gaze for the rest of the time it took for him to get ready. 

Sliding the dagger into the leg holster, Jaskier cleared his throat. “Boil the soup again. Anytime you can’t breathe stick your head into the steam, okay? I want you alive when I get back.” 

Characteristically Geralt grunted his response, but whether or not he would follow directions was a mystery to Jaskier, who had stood up and exited the cave and knelt outside the entrance. 

“Oh, please don’t burn my lute while I’m gone. Or my cloak. Okay. That’s it, I guess. This is me, off.” 

But his feet seemed like ice frozen to the snow. He tugged on them but they wouldn’t budge. All Jaskier could do was stare at Geralt like he was a ghost, like if he looked away for even a second he would disappear, nothing more than an apparition. That’s what Geralt felt like, anyway. Nothing more than a specter, a phantom that left nothing more than an empty feeling once he went away. The months that Jaskier spent alone frightened him more than death itself because maybe Geralt would never come back. Maybe he’d only catch glimpses of his glittering white hair within the fables of the men, women, and children who had seen him slay a monster. Maybe Jaskier would only know Geralt was still alive, weeks after they had parted, through an innkeeper proudly boasting the story of the Kikimora head above the bar, how the White Wolf himself had slain it. 

Geralt’s ghost left profound loneliness within Jaskier. This felt like, staring at him, only more permanent. For a weak moment, Jaskier wished to tell Geralt how much he meant to him, how he would never find another man as important to Jaskier as Geralt was. How he could travel the earth for a thousand years, march a million miles, but never know friendship as deep and ardent as with Geralt. 

Jaskier watched him pull the violet cloak tight around his bulky form and saw the seams of the expensive fabric nearly come undone with the force behind it. He felt like he was swimming within the black armor. The length fit perfectly but the width made Jaskier feel like a shrimp. Suddenly he realized that even with the added protection he did not stand a chance against more than one man. If the town of Milhead rioted against him Jaskier would perish. Jaskier would be the ghost. 

He opened his mouth to tell Geralt he loved him, that he missed him when they were apart, and even more when they were together because the good memories always came before the bad. Instead, he shut all those words up inside his writhing stomach with a resounding click of his teeth and found the strength to tear his feet away from the cave. 

Walking did not get easier the further away Jaskier got. It wasn’t due to the cold nor the heavy snow that now permeated the ground with its deathly jeweled glow. It was because of the uncertainty of both their lives, knowing that one or both of them could be dead, could be drowning in senseless oblivion in mere hours. Jaskier tripped with the weighty knowledge of it all and buried his head in the blanket of snow to scream. 

The screaming session went on for a while. When Jaskier picked his head up out of the wetness he could not feel anything from the neck up or the knees down. But he could now see the stars. They were dimmed by the covering of the dark grey clouds, but they were there nonetheless. He sat there, wiping his numb nose, trying to suck snot back into his nostrils, and just stared at the sky, trying to calm himself down. 

The silence around him maddened Jaskier immensely. He wanted to talk to fill the void, but with no Geralt around to annoy, there did not seem to be much point to it. Jaskier delighted in aggravating him when they were walking from one job to the next. It passed the time, sure, but that wasn’t the main reason behind his annoying monologues. 

Primarily it served to prove just how dedicated Geralt was to their friendship. The more Jaskier talked and the more Geralt just shut up and ignored him demonstrated how much Geralt really liked him, words not needed to articulate that fact. Jaskier had once seen Geralt punch a man for saying more than two words to him, so the fact that he was able to get lungfuls of soliloquies in without more than a grumbling complaint or two warmed his heart.

Try as he might, Jaskier could not find a reason to let his voice exist without Geralt beside him, so he stayed taciturn, tongue dumb to the music of language. 

The impaled girl was still there when Jaskier stumbled upon her frozen body. Had it been the middle of summer her body would no doubt stink of rot and decay, skin green and yellow with death. But she was just as fresh and new as the first day he had seen her, the only indication that any time had passed at all was the small chunks of flesh taken off her feet and ankles by small woodland animals. Jaskier felt it wrong to pass by without some recognition that the colorless girl existed. Not knowing what to say and too emotionally apathetic to cry he whispered a quick prayer to Melitele for her and trudged through the snow towards Milhead. 

Gloomy light had struck the first houses of Milhead. The sky was as grey and dreary as the smoke rising from the chimneys were. Jaskier sighed, looking up above him. At least it wasn’t going to snow.

“I can’t believe you’re going to make me free Roach on such a dismal day,” Jaskier said to Melitele, kicking snow-covered rocks down the slight hill he walked on. “Honestly, have a little respect for Geralt’s horse. She’s basically his wi- ew. Scratch that. Forget I said anything.”

His stomach growled like a wild beast, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten yesterday. Jaskier hoped this errand wouldn’t take more than an hour and that he could scarf down cup after cup of that gamey tasting soup. 

When he reached the metropolitan part of Milhead he did as he had done previously: hide within the surrounding fir trees. This coverage along with the added bonus of the early morning hours meant that he was well hidden, but that also meant it was hard for him to see anything of importance. He absentmindedly wished that he had paid more attention to the layout of the town last time, though when he would’ve done that remained a mystery to him. But the more north he walked the more sure of himself he became. 

His intuition paid off when he heard the soft snorting of horses and an occasional high pitched whiny. Jaskier grinned broadly to himself when he reached the stables. They were open on all four sides, which didn’t bode well for him if the stableboy was already up doing his morning chores. But he hadn’t listened for the rooster’s crow, so Jaskier had nothing with which to gauge his window to sneak out Roach. 

She seemed in good condition if a little starved. Jaskier didn’t know if she looked thinner due to the lack of hay he saw around the stables or if they’d purposefully starved her after finding out her own was a witcher. Either way, it made him angrier than it probably should have. Roach had gone days without food before, by Geralt’s own hand, even, so she was fine. But to be that much of a prejudiced bastard to starve a man’s _horse_ …

“Come on, girl,” Jaskier clicked his tongue, grabbed the reins in his hand, the other one unlocking her stall door. He led her out as quickly and as quietly as he could, feeling like a novice as he put on her familiar saddle, though he could not mask the sound of crunching snow. 

Roach pushed her long, dry snout into Jaskier’s shoulder, nickering as she smelled her master. Jaskier whispered to her: “He‘s poorly right now. We’re going to go get him and take him to a better town.” 

“Better town, you say? Why there’s no place better than Milhead!” That oily voice slid down Jaskier’s neck like cold, slimy grease, turning his blood into slush. Ever so slowly he continued forward, one foot in front of the other, shushing Roach as she sensed pants-wetting fear. “I thought you liked it here, Jaskier, I really did.” 

“Fuck off, Torvin.” Damn the lump in his throat! 

“Oh, I would love to! But you need to answer for your crimes, my boy.” 

“I haven’t committed any crimes.” 

“You stole from our sweet shop woman, Mabel. Said you assaulted her with coins and took her wares. And now I see you stealing a horse that our stableboy fed and combed. Where is his coin, Jaskier, hm?” 

“If I have stolen it is because _you_ gave me false coins.” Jaskier let his free hand drop to where the dagger was strapped to his leg. He kept his eyes on the tree line in front of him. There was a crunch to the left of him and Jaskier swiped the dagger to where he thought a man might be but only slashed the air.

“And now you’re accusing the mayor of this fine town of counterfeiting? Oh, what treason!” 

In the blink of an eye, three men surrounded Jaskier and Roach in a semicircle. He did not see Torvin among them and assumed that he was behind them like the coward he was. Jaskier tried his best to calm Roach, who had stood up on her hind legs in shock. As soon as her hooves were back on the ground Jaskier swung a leg over her, pulling the rest of his body up and slapping the reins down upon her neck. 

“Go, Roach!” Jaskier urged her. The three men scattered to get out of the way as she scampered through the town like a bat out of hell. 

“Get him!” 

“Shit, shit, _shit_ ,” Said Jaskier under his breath, and just as soon as they had disappeared the men came back in full force, riding steeds that hissed out smoke like a hearth. They whooped and hollered behind him and he kicked Roach’s side in wild desperation. “You’ve got to go faster! We’ve got to get to Geralt; Geralt will prote-”

A rope looped around Jaskier’s neck and pulled tightly against his bruised airway. As the rope was tugged the first time he tried to dig his fingers between his flesh and the rough loop of rope, but there had been no space to occupy. The second time they tugged on it Jaskier flew off of Roach and landed, head first, onto the ground below, stars in his eyes and butterflies in his stomach. He kicked his legs out in front of him feebly and tried to squirm out of the noose 

Jaskier watched from his limited view as Roach sprinted ahead. No one seemed to go after her. Everyone had eyes for him, for the man who tried to help his best friend, for the fallen bard, for the makeshift witcher. 

Finally, he saw Torvin above him, cheeky, victorious grin slathered on his oily face. “Bet you wish you had taken my initial offer now, don’t you? A reduced price is, after all, so much better than death.”

XI

A deluge of water poured over his body. “Honestly, Jaskier, I’m more upset that you broke our promise. You told me you weren’t going to bother my townspeople again.” 

A thoroughly soaked Jaskier strained uselessly against his bonds, shivering with such intensity it felt like he might shoot off like a cork on a shaken champagne bottle. 

They were on the outskirts of Milhead, Jaskier tied to a post right by the dead girl. She seemed a good companion as any and helped him not to fear what was to come next. He let his eyes slide to her colorless ones and Torvin smiled. 

“A beauty, isn’t she?” He almost sounded proud as he picked up a chunk of frozen, snow embedded hair. “My daughter, Twila. Shame I had to kill her.” 

“Y-y-you k-k-killed her?” Jaskier’s mouth was agape. He’d heard tales of fathers beating their daughters, selling them for a pint of beer, locking them in towers because they were too selfish to share their own flesh and blood with the world outside. It shouldn’t have surprised him that there was a man sinful enough and evil enough to kill his daughter, and yet it did anyway. 

Torvin nodded, looking at Jaskier as if it had been the most logical, rational decision he’d ever made in his life. “Obviously? She’s the one who killed my son, Torvin. Left him and his wife outside to die by that savage gravier. They were pregnant with my grandchild and she murdered them. Wouldn’t you kill a monster like that?” 

Jaskier had a sneaking suspicion that had she been alive Twila would have a disparate take on the events preceding her death. His chattering teeth bit into his tongue. Blood spurted between his lips as he tried to gulp down another breath. It was difficult; his lungs did not want to inflate. They were stubbornly stagnant and managed only to accept the shallowest of oxygen levels. 

Grey clouds covered the entire sky, though a great white spot near to the east of them indicated to him that it was probably around seven in the morning. Birds chirped to one another, fluttering past the camp of men who, to Jaskier, smelled overwhelmingly of vinegar. 

“We may not have much,” Torvin said, and now he was smiling a smile that was all teeth and no comfort, red lips turned white as they hid under gums. Another bucket of water poured over his body and Jaskier couldn’t help but freeze. “But at least we have enough to make you die uncomfortably. A thief and a liar deserves that much, don’t you agree?” 

“N-n-not really.” His voice was suddenly weaker, more strained. 

“No, of course, you don’t. You probably think that stealing is a noble cause. Is that what that witcher teaches you?”

Jaskier looked down as much as he could without choking himself. They never took the rope around his neck off and one of the men’s jobs was to hold the end of it up as high as he could. His view was limited, but he could see his hands, now a hangman’s purple, tied in front of him. 

Of course, Geralt taught him none of that. For all of his abhorrent social manners and flawed business tactics, Geralt was, at least, honest with his money. It was no wonder Torvin thought Jaskier and Geralt were thieves: he was a fraudulent man who was caught up in his own web of lies. Geralt expected to be paid in full for the duties he performed because he paid the inns and barmaids what they earned. It was Jaskier who had tried to haggle their price for a room or a slab of cheese down a few coins, but he only ever usually did it in jest. 

Without warning, Torvin struck Jaskier’s nose. A torrent of blood flowed down his nostrils, into his mouth, and down Geralt’s armor. It turned the silver spikes red. 

“Fuck!” Jaskier cried out, eyes watering. 

“Answer me when I ask you a question.” 

“N-No! Y-You’re just a ch-cheap b-b-bastard!” 

The noose became a smidgeon tighter and he hacked up spit.

“Watch how you talk to me, boy. I control your life.” 

Jaskier gasped, trying to retain enough oxygen to keep conscious. He let his head loll back on his shoulders for a second as his mind blanked. He couldn’t feel any part of his body, couldn’t access any memories to pull himself away from his own death. His mind buzzed with white static, forcing him to live within the confines of the present. 

Wistfully he tried to think about Geralt. He tried to think, as another flood of water came upon him, smacking into his chest like a waterfall, about him lying by the fire, sick and suffering, waiting for Jaskier to come riding back on Roach like a wayward knight, golden and shining and perfectly ready to nurse him back to health. He thought about Geralt allowing him to slip an arm under to the small of his back, hoisting up onto his horse, guiding Roach along towards another town. 

He only hoped he had done his job a little better than death, that he had helped Geralt enough to the point where he was able to fend for himself against the grim reaper.

“Slap him.” A palm struck Jaskier’s face, and the colorless eyes that never quite left his sight came back into shocking realism. Torvin was close enough that their noses were almost touching. 

“Say you’re sorry.” 

“S-sorry,” Slurred Jaskier, flopping his head weakly around from side to side, letting his gaze fall to the snow-covered ground beneath him. He felt strangely warm; like he had swallowed a pie just barely out of the oven. The warmth spread from his intestines to his frozen fingertips, and Jaskier vaguely remembered he had not felt this heated comfort since being attacked by the Djinn. 

“Say that you’re a monster.” 

“‘M’a mo’s-s-s-s’er.” The man pulled the rope again, completely killing Jaskier’s windpipe. 

“Monstrously bad at singing, maybe,” A withering scream settled into Jaskier’s ears. He saw a long stream of steaming blood splatter into his line of sight. “But other than that I’d say you’re perfectly human.” 

Many things happened all at once: Torvin’s fat arm fell to the ground, Jaskier was released from his bonds, and lots of indignant shouts, most of which he couldn’t make out, were heard from all sides of the forest. 

“Fucking - Run! He’ll kill you if he catches you!” Was the only thing Jaskier clearly heard before it dissolved into an incomprehensible, guttural scream of desperate terror like the rest. 

Jaskier laid in the snow, curled in on himself, shivering violently. He covered his mouth with his hands, trying in vain to breathe warmth back into them. He couldn’t lose his fingers… he was a musician. If he couldn’t strum his lute then he may as well bloody die here. Jaskier let himself whimper anxiously, trying to get his mouth moving in a breathy, silent prayer. His fingers were purple like his cloak that was dancing in and out of his blurred vision. They were nearly indistinguishable in color.

“G-Geralt!” He cried, letting fear paint every chord he rasped out. He did not sound like himself. 

“I’m here, Jask,” And suddenly Geralt knelt before him, running a large fevered hand through his ice-streaked hair. He removed the cloak and covered Jaskier in it like a child would a starving kitten. From his pocket, Geralt pulled out the gloves Jaskier had forgotten before he left and tugged them over his frozen hands. “I’m here.”

Suddenly he started sobbing. Warm tears rolled down his face, mingling with snot and blood. “P-p-please don’t c-c-cut off my f-fingers! I need th-them to p-play.” 

“Hush, Jaskier, that’s enough hysterics. I fear you shall keep your fingers and plague me with your lute in no time.”

Geralt’s voice was soft and sweet, which was a tone he reserved for Yennefer or dying grandmothers. Jaskier had heard him use it only twice. Both times sent pangs of jealousy shooting through his stomach like knives. Once he was laying in Yennefer’s lap and on the verge of sleep, and he told her that he was happy fate had intertwined them; that when she drew her last living breath so would he. The other time had Geralt kneeling over an old woman, shoulders sagging with guilt. Her granddaughter, one of the more nasty striga’s he’d encountered, had slashed her stomach open and wasn’t long for the mortal world. Jaskier watched as Geralt said soothing words to her, promised that he’d still try to save her granddaughter, and closed her eyelids as she passed. 

Now, Jaskier realized, he wished Geralt possessed no such tone of voice. He wished he had not been jealous. These notes of gentleness only welcomed death. He knew that Yennefer and Geralt were not just intertwined by fate; they wore nooses around their necks, standing side by side on the gallows of destiny. When one died so would the other. Geralt knew this remarkably well, though the knowledge of it remained an uncovered secret to Yennefer. Geralt talked to her and now to him like they were horses with broken legs that needed to be put down.

“D-Did you f-find R-Roach?” Stuttered Jaskier, clumsily pulling his arms and legs closer to his chest. 

Geralt nodded, searching the dead men for furs. “She had my emergency potions in her saddle. Nice job hooking it up.” Jaskier watched as he came back and helped him to sit up, piling his shoulders with the three furry cloaks he acquired. “Do you think you could ride for an hour until we reach Granun?”

“I could r-ride a th-thousand miles if it m-meant I’d n-never see this p-place again.” 

The smile Geralt gave him was one of soft amusement. If Jaskier didn’t know him any better he’d say his eyes were twinkling with admiration. Maybe he might be enough after all. Maybe Geralt would never say it outright. Maybe Jaskier had to come to terms with that on his own. He allowed Geralt to help him up onto Roach and stole one last look at the scene behind them as they rode off. 

Not every murder scene Geralt left behind was stomach-churning. Some looked as if they had practically never happened. Some had monsters lying on the group looking to all the world as if they were sleeping, permitted one pleasantly forgot that its head was missing. This had not been one of those murder scenes. 

Jaskier hadn’t counted how many men had been there to kill him, but he noted there were four bodies not including Torvin. One was lying facedown on the ground further away from the group - Jaskier suspected that man had been the one to run away, which was futile considering how adept Geralt was at his job. Most of the bodies had lakes of dark, almost black blood beneath them. A young man, probably no more than twenty-three, had part of his scalp missing and his brain exposed, while another man’s eyeballs had been shoved back into his sockets until they burst like balls of pus and blood. 

Torvin, Jaskier noted as his eyes fell upon him, had his head completely severed from his body. His arm had also been hacked off, uneven muscle and bone protruding from the stump of a shoulder that remained. Jaskier almost threw up his nonexistent dinner from the previous night, but still made a noise of discontentment in the back of his throat. 

“He was a monster,” Geralt supplied simply. “I only did to him what I did to the gravier.” 

“Sometimes you are frightfully scary, Geralt.”

Geralt clicked his tongue, urging Roach to trot faster. “Only when the situation calls for it. Only when someone nearly kills you.” 

Jaskier felt himself slipping off of the horse and allowed himself to slide his hands around Geralt’s torso. He felt warm - not feverish, though. Maybe Jaskier only thought that before because he had no body heat himself. “Thank you.” 

“That’s enough, Jaskier. I don’t need your thanks. I just need you alive.”

Jaskier smiled into the small of Geralt’s back and squeezed a little tighter.

XII

_My Lady,_

_No doubt you are wondering where I have been the past week. I admit that I have wondered the same thing for the past few days. Needless to say, I will not make it to your fine home in time to perform for your brother’s coronation. Would that I could, my lady, for nothing would give me more pleasure than that, but I am recuperating from frostbite in a small but pleasant village called Granun._

_I was walking along a forest path a couple of days ago and stumbled across my longtime friend, Geralt of Rivia. You may know of him from my numerous ballads about the white wolf. If his injuries had not been life-threatening I may have continued on with my day, but I could not forgo his life while he was so exposed to the elements. I took him to a cave and nursed him back to health. I must admit that if being a Bard becomes too taxing in my later years I would rather enjoy being a nurse. I feel terrible, of course, for the state of your party, but you should pity me! Geralt had not showered in weeks and was fighting me the entire time we lived in the cave! Weep for young Jaskier. He may never smell the roses again._

_May I offer a piece of advice? If you or your men travel south, avoid a town called Milhead. Its mayor is dead, and though he was the main cause of the suffering between Geralt and myself, I fear that the people may be too far gone to reason with. They are horrible people, ready to accuse and kill the moment they decide that something is different from their way of life._

_I am resting comfortably. Granun’s physician came to look at me today and told me that I should regain full use of my fingers within four to seven days. There were other problems, too, like fever and the bruising around my neck, but I did not care about anything but my fingers. I’m sure you feel the same way, my lady._

_If you should ever find yourself in need of a witcher or bard, please contact me once again._

_Yours,_

_Jaskier._

Geralt leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes at the parchment. “This seems a bit cheesy.” 

Jaskier waved his hands in front of his face dismissively from where he lounged on the bed. “Ladies love cheesy. It’s fine.” 

“And I did not smell, by the way. You’re exaggerating again.” 

“Oh, you don’t know _what_ you smelled like! Stunk up the whole cave! It was a miracle I didn’t choke.” 

Geralt grumbled and reread what Jaskier had him transcribe. “Do you always write this… romantically?” 

“It’s not romantic, Geralt, it’s polite. I’ve made a promise to this poor woman and I can’t keep it. She’s probably horribly distraught that I can’t be there to entertain.”

“I don’t know, Jaskier, if you canceled on me I’d be jumping for joy.” 

“That’s because you’ve got as much taste in entertainment as Roach does. She’d be happy with bubbling mud.” 

“Mm, bubbling mud is better than you. Roach knows what sounds good.” 

“Roach is a damn horse, Geralt. You’re not supposed to like what she likes.” 

“Now you’re just being stupid. Of _course,_ I am. We both like carrots. And hay. And silence.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes and threw a pillow at Geralt’s head, feeling a sense of pride when it hit its target. “Go and send the letter. I fear I may need another nap after your facetious quarreling.” 

Geralt walked over and placed the pillow behind Jaskier, face unreadable. He wasn’t angry, that much was certain, but Jaskier couldn’t quite understand the emotion he was trying to portray. He leaned into Geralt’s touch as he pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. He did not smile or frown, nod or shake his head, merely gazed at him with curious, tired yellow eyes. 

He did not look so much like a child now, Jaskier realized. He had the eyes of someone who had felt loss so keenly, so acutely, that they had aged beyond death itself. 

“Sleep well, Jaskier. You’ve earned it.” 

“You’re fucking right I have.” 

**Author's Note:**

> honestly it was really fun writing feral!jaskier and crying!jaskier and spiteful!jaskier.  
> writing jaskier in general is fun.
> 
> anyway there will probably not be a sequel to this unless y'all want it, but I was planning on taking a break from writing until nanowrimo so I could focus on school. still, if the public wants it, amiright? I'm too good looking to NOT be a sellout.


End file.
